348 



ARBORICULTURE. 



I'arm lields. Thus the forests have beeu 

 sacrificed and but little remains. 



The twentieth century farmer sees a 

 new era. While there is no increase of 

 farm lands, but with populous manufac- 

 turing cities, thickly standing and rapidly 

 growing with the wonderful increase in 

 population, making a demand for lumljer 

 wbich t::e world is unable to supply. Manu- 

 factories of agricultural machiner)', furni- 

 ture and the building trades are all crying 

 rut for lumber, ^v'hile the demands of com- 

 uierce for cross ties and cars, of the tele- 

 graph and telephone companies for poles, 

 for the farmer for posts and buildings, 

 and tbe building trade for lumber of all 

 kinds, will, in a brief period, be unan- 

 swered. 



Why can not the American farmer grow 

 a crop of boards, cross ties, telegraph poles 

 taid furniture lumher to a greater profit 

 than he receives for wheat? Let us see. 

 We take forty acres of wheat for a period 

 of ten years, three years of \\4iich the land 

 must be clovered to maintain its fertility. 

 He expends for seed in the seven years, 

 $378; labcr. plowing and seeding, $700; 

 harvesting and marketing, $700; an ex- 

 penditure of $1,778. An average crop is 

 eighteen l)ushels per acre, consequently in 

 the ten years he receives $3,780, a net gain 

 of $2,002, or average for each year, $200. 



Presuming this forty acres to be planted 

 in some good, quick-growing timher in a 

 systematic manner. The cost of trees, 

 planting, cultivation and pruning will not 

 exceed $20 per acre or $800. In ten years 

 he will harvesf 35,000 fence posts or mine 

 timbers, which, at twenty cenis net, will 

 l)ring him $7,000. Or if "he thins the for- 

 est at eight or ten years, leaving 200 per- 

 manent trees per acre, tliese in twenty 

 vears or less will make telegraph poles 

 worth $3 eaeli. an income of $24,000. If 

 these trees are grown for lumber, 100 trees 

 per acre in twenty years, he can have 

 2,000,000 feet of lumber, Avhich, even at 

 present prices, would net him $40,000, 

 which is considerably uiore than his wheat 

 crop would bring. 



Kememher that every farmer is not go- 

 ing to plant a forest and the demand for 

 lumher comes from every part of the 

 world, with practically only Canada and 

 the United States to supply it. 



Of course, if oak and hickory are 

 planted, it will be many years before the 

 market will be reached, but there are a 

 number of quick-growing, valuable forest 

 trees which may be planted to profit. 

 Black walnut, butternut, swamp ash, tam- 

 arack in places, Ailanthus, black locust on 

 rough, poor ground, tulip trees or yellow 

 poplar, Carolina poplars, which, how- 

 ever, is only a cottonwood, for paper stock, 

 and cataipa speciosa for all purposes. 



We understand that the farmer never 

 counts his own time and that of his team 

 in estimating cost of farm productions; 

 it all goes in dunng the year as time ne- 

 cessarily spent, yet if he hires a laborer 

 from the city he must pay twenty cents an 

 hour, and if he has occasion to hire a team 

 from livery barn it is four dollars a day, 

 and so we estimate his time with team at 

 $2.50 per day. Then, again, if he should 

 devote one-fourth his farm to the growth 

 of a forest, more time and attention cou:ld 

 be given to the remainder, and I do not 

 hesitate to tell you farmers that, as a 

 rule, a heavier crop of corn, wheat or ]30- 

 tatoes would 1)e secured, and a greater 

 ])rofit upon three-fourths the land usually 

 cultivated by the extra attention, better 

 cultivation and more thorough fertilizing 

 than is now grown upon the whole. 



Thus the one-fourth given up to forest 

 would not detract from the crops now 

 gathered. Trees require no special fertil- 

 izing. It is a province of trees to enrich 

 the land. Each year the annual deposit 

 of leaves and fallen twigs adds fertility to 

 the soil, while l^eneath the surface the sub- 

 soil is penetrated by strong roots, water, 

 air and fertilizing materials are carried 

 down by the sa|), and as leaves die and 

 fall away, so also roots and rootlets become 

 useless and decay as fresh roots are pushed 

 out furtlier from the tree, thus adding car- 

 bon potash and other elements to enrich 

 the soil for a succeeding crop when trec'^ 

 are removed. 



The winds blow and carry falling leaves 

 into adjoining fields, adding to their fer- 

 tility. 



It is well known how beneficial the wood 

 lot is in breaking the force of the wind. 



It is scarcely necessary to discuss the 

 climatic influence of forest and the neces- 

 sity of having a good proportion of timber 



