112 



ARBORICULTURE 



manufactured from wood, giving em- 

 ployment to very large numbers of citi- 

 zens, supporting the families of these ar- 

 tisans, maintaining the public schools, 

 providing materials for builders and 

 other mechanics, make our Nation which 

 was favored with forests to revel in 

 wealth, while others possessing few for- 

 ests remain in poverty. 



"The printing press would cease to 

 give us books and papers were the trees 

 from which the wood pulp and paper is 

 made, to become exhausted. 



"The planting of a few trees on Arbor 

 Day can have but slight effect on the 

 economic problem of the Nation, but if 

 the lessons inculcated upon that occasion 

 are remembered in future years, the re- 

 sult may have a greater bearing than any 

 of us can realize at the present time. 



"What does it concern you, young peo- 

 ple, these forest influences of such vast 

 import ? 



"Of course it does, as does every in- 

 fluence which affects this Republic. 



"You may reside in a city and have a 

 business entirely foreign to woods or any 

 of the wood productions, but every busi- 

 ness interest in the great cities and 

 smaller villages is so intimately related 

 to every other trade or occupation that 

 every one is concerned in whatever in- 

 jures or benefits the Nation as a whole." 



THE FARLINGTON PLANTATION. 



I went over the Farlington (Kansas) 

 tree farm and found the stumps with 

 sprouts two years old without ever hav- 

 ing the surplus sprouts removed. The 

 "sprouting" they should have done in 

 July, 1904, they are doing now ; also 

 burning the brush and limbs and clear- 

 it so rabbits will not harbor in it. 



There is only about two acres left 

 standing, and found a percentage of 



trees that had lost out in the struggle 

 for existence. 



These were standing 4 by 4 feet apart. 



At Farlington they were sawing the 

 trees into posts, and the select trees were 

 reserved for telephone poles. I found 

 the posts and poles much straighter than 

 1 had been led to expect. 



By the way, I will put Girard, Kan- 

 sas, (and vicinity) against any town in 

 the world, large or small, containing the 

 most Catalpa trees. There are all three 

 kinds in abundance. Of the thousands 

 of trees in the town I did not see one 

 Catalpa of either variety that had been 

 topped or with the top blown out. 



SOIL ANALYSIS FOR FORESTS. 



One of the great humbugs supported 

 by the United States Department of 

 Agriculture is the soil analysis for cer- 

 tain forest trees. 



The entire country east of Illinois ex- 

 tending to the Atlantic Ocean on the east, 

 and half of Mexico on the south, has 

 produced immense forests of great trees, 

 and so existed until within a brief period. 

 This soil has not degenerated, except 

 upon mountains, where it has been 

 eroded. The chemical constituents have 

 not changed, save as by continuous cul- 

 tivation some of the humus has been con- 

 sumed, and the land which has produced 

 the most magnificent of timber trees 

 will, if given a chance, reproduce timber 

 in the future. 



The subterfuge of the Department in 

 sending out an inexperienced youth with 

 a book on Chemistry in one hand and a 

 bundle of nonsense in the other to defeat 

 a great project of tree-planting by an- 

 nouncing that trees will not grow in Vir- 

 ginia, is too plain to be hidden and too 

 ridiculous to be of more than temporary 

 effect. 



