REPORT OF THE STATE BOTANIST I9Q13 73 
at $11.50 a cubic meter with bark. This material is in great demand 
for the manufacture of ammunition boxes and the recent wars and 
the preparations for war seem to have caused a great increase in 
the price for the lower grades of Scotch pine. 
At the base of the mountain slope just above the city is an old 
chestnut orchard, planted privately about 125 years ago for the pro- 
duction of chestnuts. Cheap transportation from the south has 
ruined the local chestnut market and this orchard, on a slope too 
steep for agricultural purposes, was purchased by the city about 
60 years ago. The trees were originally in rows about 20 feet apart. 
The chestnut logs obtained from this stand are cut into large billets 
and exported to Holland where they bring about $20 a thousand 
board feet and from them is manufactured tight cooperage for the 
export of brandies. Following the removal of the largest trees there 
occurred a wonderfully fine regeneration of chestnut, which seemed 
to the local authorities an unheard of thing. They are now cutting 
the chestnuts downward from the top of the stand as fast as the 
regeneration progresses. Mixed with the chestnut regeneration is 
some maple. 
“Black locust, of which there is quite an abundance scattered along 
the lower slopes, brings a price of $10 a cubic meter for spokes 
and hubs. 
On the higher slopes and plateau to the north of the city the 
forest was originally all hardwoods, but with centuries of misuse 
they became unprofitable and were for the most part transformed 
into coppice hardwoods, while the soil became dried and sterile. 
With the beginning of the last half century these slopes were planted 
mostly by seed planting to Scotch pine below and spruce or fir 
above with considerable larch intermixed. This was done because 
it was believed that the more modest conifers would have a chance 
to succeed and to become profitable here where the hardwoods 
had failed. That they have paid is doubtless true, but the result 
has been the formation of a vast even-aged stand of conifers, often 
subject to severe snowbreak, windfall, and the ever present danger 
of a vast forest fire. The general tendency, now that the conifers 
are well established, is to break up these even-aged stands into small 
compartments of varying age and species and wherever the soil and 
exposure warrants it, the introduction again of hardwoods. 
On one of the upper slopes is to be seen the present day result 
of the planting of the so-called “ Jager’s mixture.” Fifty years ago 
or more there was planted here a mixture of seeds of Scotch pine, 
spruce and larch. Today it looks like a pure Scotch pine stand from 
