ARBORICULTURE 



117 



planted some years later which are about 

 forty feet high and would make four 

 posts to the cut. About that time I sent 

 to a nursery for one hundred hardy ca- 

 talpa seedlings, which were being sold 

 at a cent apiece delivered. The seed- 

 lings were sent by mail, and to-day some 

 of these trees would make four to eight 

 posts to a cut. Some time ago it was 

 necessary for me to replace a plate on 

 my stable, and as I wanted a perfectly 

 straight piece of timber I went to my 

 woodlot. It took quite a little time to 

 find it, but I found one that was as 

 straight as a line for twenty-five feet. I 

 think it pays to take care of our good 

 timber, as good dimension timber is get- 

 ting scarce. G. F. Wiegand. 

 Jersey County, 111. 



THE TREE PLANTING EXPERI- 

 MENT. 



Too much can not be said, at this time, 

 in commendation of the experiment in 

 tree planting that the State Agricultural 

 Experiment Station is taking up with 

 farmers over the State. It may be a 

 matter of regret that it was not done 

 years ago, so that no time should be now 

 last along lines of experimentation. One 

 man writes to the station that he wants 

 to plant trees, but does not wish to spend 

 any time in experimenting. 



The era of tree planting is already at 

 the door, as seen in the fact that so many 

 persons want to take up the experiment 

 with the station. There are nearly three 

 times as many applicants as the station 

 can supply with trees, which shows the 

 attitude to which people are coming. 

 The tree planting idea is also seen in 

 what many are already doing. One gen- 

 tleman, in business on Champa Street, 

 owns a small tract of land in Southern 



California which he has planted entirely 

 to eucalyptus. He also owns 200 acres 

 at Lamar, Col., and has planted 100 

 hardy catalpa and 2,200 black locust, 

 which is only a beginning of what he has 

 in mind. At Cope, in Washington 

 County, one farmer has planted nearly 

 2,000 trees on the bare plains with no 

 ditch in sig"ht, and stands ready to dem- 

 onstrate what can be done without irri- 

 gation if men will do as he does to con- 

 serve the rainfall. W. E. Wolfe & Co., 

 at Wray, in Yunia County, have started 

 tree planting on a large scale and are 

 putting out osage orange, hardy catalpa, 

 ash, elm, Russian mulberry, sugar ma- 

 ple, red locust and black walnut, thus 

 leaving cactus and cottonwood far in the 

 rear. One of our citizens on Seventeenth 

 Street will set 10,000 utility trees in the 

 spring. 



Such men are ahead of the station ex- 

 periments. They see the approaching 

 demand for poles, posts and ties, and are 

 awake to the trend of things. Although 

 many are ahead of the station, yet the 

 experiment will be vastly valuable. It 

 will lead to the issuance of bulletins 

 based on facts for future guidance. It 

 will arrest the immediate attention of 

 many farmers and lead to the planting 

 of wood lots for purposes of utility and 

 profit, and this should be encouraged in 

 every possible way. 



Further, it may possibly lead capital- 

 ists to question whether any farm land, 

 as such, is too valuable for trees, and in- 

 duce them to invest large sums in tree 

 planting for the production of poles and 

 ties as a certain and permanent source 

 of revenue and profit greater than any 

 other farm crop can offer. For Colo- 

 rado this may appear speculative, but in 

 Kansas they are finding such dreams to 

 be surprisingly true. — Denver Republi- 

 can, Feb. 20, 1906. 



