Feb. 188G.] EDITORIAL NOTES. 599 



Editorial Kotes. 



Close and Open Forest Planting. — In order to test the 

 advantages or disadvantages of planting at various distances, some 

 experiments were instituted in Germany some twenty-five years ago, 

 and the results have recently been made known. An area of about 

 fifty acres of the same average quality of soil and the same ex- 

 posure was planted, in ten-acre portions, at distances ranging from 

 four feet by four feet to twelve feet by twelve feet. Careful 

 measurement has recently been made of the timber in each plot, 

 and the following table is alleged to show the results in each 

 case : — 



It would appear from these figures that the crop decreases in pro- 

 portion as the width between the plants is increased at planting 

 time. But there is much besides this meagre statement of the results 

 at twenty-five years after planting required to enable us fully to 

 understand the value of this important experiment in arboricultural 

 practice. The management of the several portions of the fifty acres 

 under experiment during the twenty-five years must form an in- 

 dispensable factor in coming to any conclusion as to the value of 

 these figures, which are put forward as the ultimate result of the 

 comparative experiment. 



The PtELATiox of Heaetwood to Sapwood. — It is a common 

 and rather loosely held opinion that the formation of sapwood into 

 heartwood in trees is not a gradual and concurrent process, but that 

 it begins at a certain age in the same species invariably ; modified 

 only in a trifling degree by the differences of soil and climate as 

 they may affect the growth of individuals. Thus the larch, for 

 instance, must attain a certain age, no matter wdiat the differences 

 of soil and climate under which it is cjvown, before it begins to form 



