350 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Question: What about the honey locust? 



Mr. Freeman: That is good for post timber, but I would not advise 

 any one to gi-ow it. It is too thorny and scraggly. It is unfit for grow- 

 ing on this account. 



Mr. Hale, of Connecticut: I have been interested in this discussion 

 of forestry in its relation to orchards, and know there are features in it 

 of decided value. In a level country, unquestionably a large forest area 

 reasonably near orchards is a decided benefit; also along the line of our 

 streams for the retention of moisture and giving us a more continuous 

 supply of moisture. Yet forests close to an orchard are sometimes in- 

 jurious. They do harbor the birds that destroy the insects, but they also 

 harbor insects, and I prefer an orchard somewhat removed from a forest. 

 Yet unquestionably a well-balanced, symmetrical condition can not be 

 maintained without a forest area. That seems to be well settled, and I 

 thinli we have been in this countrj^ destroying our wood and timber with 

 recliless prodigality, and if we do not have to replant some of our timber 

 lands, our children will have to do so. 



The spealier read some statistics about the falling off of the apple 

 crop in this State in certain years. That interested me very much. I 

 notice that the writer laid the falling off to the destruction of the forests. 

 I thinlv there is something wrong with that theory, especially as applied 

 to some of the years given in the list. Take 1896, for instance, when we 

 had the greatest apple crop of this country. Of course, the next year 

 the trees were just taking a loafing spell, and the gi-eat falling off, shown 

 for that year, was not on account of the destruction of the forests at all. 

 The wi-iter of the paper was thinking of the destruction of the forests, 

 and didn't know anything about orchards. We get our minds on one 

 thing, and are apt to forget other things. Nevertheless, I am in hearty 

 sympathy with a plan for the conservation of the forests of this counti-y 

 and the replanting of tracts that have become waste. 



.Tames Little: In these meetings we should try to instruct the people, 

 not from theory, but from our own experiences. We can read a great 

 many things in books that do not work out in practice. Last year I talked 

 about the catalpa. I learned from the people in the "Pocket." I was 

 among them for weeks. I am a friend of the catalpa; I think it is a 

 good tree. I think I have the oldest trees in central Indiana, and some of 

 them are large enough to make sawlogs. A great deal has been said about 

 the durability of timl)or. The catalpa was spoken of in this connection; 

 also the mulberry, the locust, the coffee nut and others. I want to call 

 your special attention to one variety of timber which, I am positive, has 

 no equal in America for durability. I refer to the Osage orange. I have 

 had Osage orange trees planted on my place for twenty-five to thirty 



