266 



HOW FARMERS MAY GROW FOREST TREES FROM SEED. 



By D. W. Beadle, of St. Catharines, Ont. 



It has occurred to me that there may be farmers who want to plant young trees, 

 either for useful purposes or for ornamentation, and if they want to plant largely may 

 find it impossible to get them in sufficient quantity from nurserymen, who generally con- 

 fine their cultivation to fruit trees, and have not grown to any large extent forest trees 

 for timber. But these parties can form a nursery of these trees themselves by procuring 

 a small piece of ground and have it especially prepared and well manured, so that there 

 will be strength in the soil for a few years, and then they can raise whatever kind of tree 

 they want. Seeds of the elm, maple, ash and of the walnut and butternut can be found 

 in almost any part of the Province. The imjjortant point in planting seeds is that they 

 should be planted as soon as perfectly ripe. Some of our trees ripen their seeds quite 

 early. The Soft Maples, the Dasycarpum and rubum and the elms, ripen their seeds in 

 June. (Mr. Beadle here exhibited two seedlings of Soft Maple grown from this year's 

 seeds.) These maples ripen their seed in June, and it should be gathered and sown at 

 once so that you can get a tree of considerable growth before the winter season. The 

 seed of the elms should also be sown at once ; it should be sown in drills not deeply, but 

 covered very lightly. These small seeds require to be covered with only sufficient earth 

 to keep them moist, and they will produce plants in a very short time, and gain sufficient 

 strength to tide over the cold season. But it is not true of all the maples that they 

 ripen their seed so early in the season. The Sugar Maple ripens its seeds late in the au- 

 tumn, as well as the Ash-leaved Maple, and unless you wish to sow them in the autumn, 

 you have to preserve them and sow them in the spring. If you are not in a position 

 to sow the seed at once, and wish to keep them till the next spring, they should be 

 mixed with sandy soil and kept damp, yet not so damp as to cause them to germinate, 

 and not be allowed to get dry. In this way you may preserve them with safety. If kept 

 dry in papers some of them will have vitality the following spring, but very many of 

 them will not germinate next season, and the proper way to preserve them is to mix them 

 with moist earth. Now comes the butternuts, chestnuts and walnuts ; these all ripen in the 

 late autumn, and in suitable soils, may be planted as soon as gathered, and allowed to 

 freeze and thaw with impunity, as they will not suffer therefrom, but will germinate 

 freely in the spring. But in soils which heave out the nuts under the effect of alternate 

 freezing and thawing, it will be better to mix the seeds with soil in sufficient quantity to 

 keep them moist, and prevent them from moulding, and keep them until spring before 

 planting, or they may be spread out very thin upon the ground, and covered with a sod, 

 in which manner they will keep fresh. It is not necessary that the nuts be subjected to 

 frost, that is a matter of perfect indifference ; the important thing is not to permit them 

 to become dry. These trees can be grown in nursery fashion, until they attain sufficient 

 size to be planted where they are to remain, especially the elms, maples and ashes. The 

 nut-bearing trees will make better growth if they be planted in the nut where they are 

 to remain. 



The benefits actually resulting to farm crops from suitable shelter by hedges is set 

 forth in the following letter to Dr. Warder, from L. B. Wing, Newark, Ohio. 



Dr. Jno. A. Warder: 



My Dear Sir, — In conversation with Mr. Chamberlain, I stated that the only wheat 

 I raised in 1881 was upon the ground protected by my hedges. In your note of the 15th 

 to me at Newark you ask me for particulars — they are not extraordinary, but I will give 

 them : — 



One prairie field about eighty rods in length was sown in the fall of 1880 with Fultz 

 Wheat. The land had good natural drainage, and the wheat went into the winter with 

 a good growth and healthy appearance. But the only part of it that withstood the severe 



