TREATMENT OP WOODS. 



Owners of wood lots do not attach sufficient importance to their nut-bearing trees 

 It will not be very many years before the hickory, black walnut, and chestnut, will 

 have become so scarce as to possess a value, for the fruit they might produce, quite 

 exceeding that of most orchard trees. But a small portion of the hickory trees in 

 forests where this is the prevailing tree, bear well, if at all. The good bearers should 

 be saved and cherished. There is so much difierence, too, in the quality of the nuts 

 — nearly as much as in the fruit of a seedling apple orchard — that great care should 

 be taken in selecting the trees to be spared the axe. Some claim to be able to judge 

 of the character of the nut by the number of leaflets in a leaf. I do not know how 

 far this test may be relied on. 



In forest labor there is quite too little attention paid to the fact that some trees are 

 impatient of removal, and that such should be cherished on their natal soil. The 

 hickory, for instance, is very difficult to transplant. Indeed, I do not recollect ever to 

 have seen one, of the common size for street planting, live long after removal. We 

 should act upon the hint, and encourage it to give us the greatest possible beauty in 

 the place where it germinated. Few of our western farmers realize that they have 

 been guilty of any great barbarity, when they have "cleared" their last field without 

 having left a hickory upon the fj\rm. With this tree, utility and beauty go so hand 

 in hand, that such wanton destruction is quite inexcusable. For beauty and thrift, 

 there are few round-headed trees equalling the hickory. 



Thorough draining will much improve a forest, not only in the increased growth of 

 the trees, but in the greater comfort of getting about in it. All, or nearly all woods 

 are closer and firmer on a dry than on a wet soil. Often the vegetable matter that 

 forest ditches afford would pay very well for the trouble of cutting them ; and it will 

 generally be found that these drains will effect quite as favorable a change in the 

 forest crop as in the field crop, though their influence would not be perceived so 

 immediately. 



It is becoming an object in the older States to make forests for timber. On sandy 

 soils, and such as compose the western prairies, the locust grows- so rapidly that it 

 soon arrives at a size profitable for many uses. On a moderately rich, sandy soil, the 

 yellow or seed locust, if not sown too thick, is large enough at eight years old to 

 make good fence posts, and would do very well for the rails of a " post and rail " fence. 

 The sprouting propensity of this tree precludes all necessity of replanting. The char- 

 acter of the locust for durability is such that, if possible to get, it would be very gen- 

 erally used for railroad ties. A prairie or New England farmer could hardly make a 

 surer provision for his children, than to make a locust plantation of a portion of the 

 land he holds in reserve for them. 



Now, Mr. Editor, these thoughts are intended more as suggestive of a great deal 

 that should be said on forest culture, than for any intrinsic value of their own ; and I 

 hope they may be the means of calling out more familiar pens. 



[ Our correspondent truly says that " no branch of agricultural industry is of greater 

 importance than forest management." We heartily thank him for bringing forward 



