228 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
sumers without reaching the lake ports, besides considerable quantities 
which are transported east through the Straits of Mackinaw. The 
quantity shipped down the various tributaries of the Mississippi, taken 
from this tract, is always greater than that by the lakes. Supposing it 
to be one-third greater, there would be 1,000,000,000 feet shipped from 
these tributaries, making a grand total of 1,750,000,000 feet of lumber 
taken annually from Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of Michigan. 
The average yield of pine timber in this region is usually estimated, 
by practical lumbermen, at 300,000 feet per 40 acres. Some place it 
higher. Reckoning 333,000 feet, it would require a little more than 
200,000 acres for the annual timber supply. If we add to this sum 
100,000 acres for railroad ties, telegraph posts, hewn timber, shingles, 
and fire-wood, determined by actual amount received in Chicago market, 
and 30,000 acres for the amount cut and burned on the ground in clear- 
ing the land, we have 330,000 acres denuded annually. At this 
rate of consumption, all the valuable timber now remaining on this 
extensive tract will be consumed in the short space of twelve years, 
and the probability is that the portion lying east of Fox River and 
Green Bay will be gone in half that time. The hard-wood timber, prin- 
cipally cut for fire-wood, will doubtless continue longer, perhaps ten or 
twelve years. Itis true, the lumbermen do not remove all the growth 
in cutting off the timber, but fires generally follow in their track, and 
consume what remains. 
It is gratifying to note that the Northwest, where so rapid denudation 
is going on, is also foremost in remedial experiment. In Iowa, Illinois, 
and Missouri, timber is principally grown from the seeds of trees found 
in the native forests, and it is supposed that about 100,000,000 of such 
trees are planted annually in the prairie States. The frm of Pinney & 
Lawrence, of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, sent to the prairie States 
9,000,000 of treesin 1869~70, and their shipments during thespring of 1871 
will be 10,000,006 to 15,000,000. Robert Dougiass, of Waukegan, Hlinois, 
will ship asmany more, and several other nurserymen will send out 100,000 
to 1,000,000 each. Reckoning the number of trees shipped by the nur- 
serymen at 50,000,000, the planting in the prairie States will amount to 
about 150,000,000 trees. The average number of trees required for an 
acre, as usually planted, is about 1,000. At this rate 150,000,000 trees 
would plant only 150,000 acres annually throughout all the West, which 
would not compensate for half the denudation in the district east of the 
Mississippi River, and to the north and west of Lake Michigan, as may 
be seen by the foregoing figures. 
MODES OF PLANTING. 
The elm and a few other species of trees ripen their seeds early in the 
season; the swamp maple (Acer rubrum,) and also the silver, about the 
1st of June. The seeds of all these must be planted immediately after 
they are ripe, as they cannot often be kept through the winter. If 
planted carefully, and well rolled, they will germinate readily. The 
maple, the chestnut, oak, hickory, beech, black walnut, butternut, We., 
which do not mature their seeds till autumn, should be planted soon 
after ripening, unless the climate is such as to cause frequent freezing 
and thawing of the ground. In this case it would be much safer to 
plant them early in the spring. They may be preserved throughout the 
winter in a tight box, (in alternate layers of sand and seed,) buried a foot 
deep in a dry and sandy knoll. The seeds will usually keep sound, and 
look nearly as fresh as when gathered from the tree. Black walnuts 
are gathered in the fall, and .some cover them with leaves and a hitle 
