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MICHIGAN ROADS AND FORESTS 



MICHIGAN 



ROADS AND FORESTS 



Official Paper of The Michigan Road Makers Association and 

 Michigan Forestry Association. 



70 Larned Street West, Detroit, Michigan. 



Entered as Second-class Matter April 27, 1907, at the Post Office at De- 

 troit, Michigan, under the Act of Congress of March 5, 1879. 



Frank E. Carter.. Editor 



PUBLISHED EVERY MONTH 



BY 



THE STATE REVIEW PUBLISHING CO., 



SUBSCRIPTION: ONE DOLLAR A YEAR, 

 PAYABLE: IN ADVANCE. 



Growing Trees on Jack-Pine Lands. 



Dr. W. J. Beals, Michigan Agricultural College 



before Michigan Forestry Association. 

 Southeast of Grayling, Crawford county, is a 

 piece of virgin Jack pine land of fair quality, 

 neither the best grade nor the poorest. In no 

 sense could this be called cut-over land. In the 

 spring of 188, on one acre of this land, well 

 cleared and plowed, were planted, in rows four 

 feet apart, a mixed lot of the following kinds 

 of trees, in size usually four to fifteen inches 

 high : Arbor vitae, American beech, American 

 elm, basswood, black ash, black cherry, balsam 

 poplar, Balm of Gilead poplar, box elder, com- 

 mon locust, canoe birch, chestnut (nuts, not 

 trees), camperdown elm, European elm, Euro- 

 pean larch, green ash, honey locust, hardy catal- 

 pa, hackberry, Jack pine (a few small ones left), 

 Kentucky coffee tree, large white poplar, Norway 

 maple, Norway spruce, pitch pine (seeds planted), 

 red elm, red maple, Russian mulberry, red cedar, 

 red pine, scarlet oak (occasionally sprouted up), 

 Sycamore maple, silver maple, silver poplar (cut- 

 tings), Scotch pine, sugar maple, Wisconsin weep- 

 ing willow, white pine, white spruce, yellow pop- 

 lar, yellow birch -forty-three kinds in all. 



These were occasionally cultivated by horses 

 for three years, with some work with a hand hoe. 

 In 1890, twenty-five kinds of Russian trees (in- 

 cluding half a dozen kinds of shrubs) were 

 moved into the rows first planted. The naming 

 of the Russian trees was too uncertain for men- 

 tion here. These sixty-eight kinds of woody 

 plants began immediately to show their adapta- 

 bility or their unfitness for the conditions to 

 which they were subjected. I take it for granted 

 that no one will care to hear of measurements or 

 the death of most kinds of these trees which gave 

 no promise of even a moderate degree of success 

 on this Jack-pine land. I will speak only of 

 those which, after growing twenty-two summers, 

 made a growth worthy of notice. 



Most of the common locusts dried out at the 

 roots and winter-killed the first year after plant- 

 ing. More recently, those that survived have 

 sent out numerous sprouts, which are far from 

 promising. A very few European larches sur- 

 vived, and measurements of three of the best 

 are given. Norway spruce seems to be hardy. 

 Measurements of fourteen of the best are given 

 with an average in height, and diameter at four 

 and one-half feet from the ground. Red cedars 



seem hardy and healthy, but owing to the death 

 of surrounding trees, they have grown broad 

 tops. White spruce is hardy, but slower than 

 .Norway spruce. I give measurements of five of 

 the best. Scotch pines mostly died, but not until 

 most of them had made a bushy growth about 

 eight feet high. I give the measurements of one, 

 the largest tree of the lot, but crooked; and from 

 a long experience with this species on the campus 

 of the Agricultural College, I feel sure that it 

 will soon die, or begin to make a very slow 

 growth. A few scarlet oaks came up as sprouts 

 from the stumps among the trees that had been 

 planted. The best of these were eighteen feet 

 high and two and one-tenth inches in diameter. 

 I had my doubts of the survival and ultimate 

 success of white pines planted on Jack-pine soil, 

 for the reason that I had never seen merchant- 

 able white pines on such lands. Professor Baker 

 and I measured all the white pines in one row, 

 thirty-eight in number, obtaining an average 

 height of. 14. 2 feet and average diameter of 2.98 

 feet. The proportions of the trunks and tops 

 were all right, but the growth slow, about six 

 inches per year. We also measured all the red 

 pines with single trunks in another row, eighteen 

 in number, with an average of 18.5 feet high 4J4 

 inches in diameter. Thirteen of the best scatter- 

 ing Norway spruces averaged 18.2 feet in height 

 and 2.82 inches in diameter. From this test (at 

 the close of twenty-two summers) for planting 

 on such lands, we rai\k the trees as follows : 

 First, red pine; second, Norway spruce; third, 

 white pine. 



Adjoining this acre of cultivated land is a piece 

 of open or scattering Jack pines, pretty thickly 

 run over by small shrubs, such as bear berry, 

 blueberry, and mats or sods of scattering wild 

 grasses, of which two species of Andropogon are 

 prominent. Without cutting out Jack pines, half 

 an acre or less in irregular shape was well 

 plowed and planted in 1888 to a variety of these 

 trees, including the most promising of those above 

 mentioned. No cultivation after planting was 

 given. Today there is now and then left a red 

 pine, Norway spruce and white pine, all of which 

 have made only stunted growth, nothing of prom- 

 ise. Adjoining this plat still other trees were 

 planted (1888) by digging a small hole for each 

 tree in the matted growth above referred to. The 

 results today show very few trees alive, and they 

 are stunted and without any promise. 



About two miles from Lake Huron, a little 

 back from the south side of An Sable river, is 

 plenty of very poor land, "utterly worthless," as 

 James Barlow said when he deeded ten acres of 

 his land to the Agricultural College. In places a 

 few small red pines, some a foot in diameter, 

 were still standing. Here, in 1889, twenty-one 

 summers past, were planted a small number of 

 different kinds of trees. The land was first 

 cleared and plowed, and the trees hoed for two 

 years, leaving on the cultivated portion now and 

 then a Jack pine two feet high. I had forgotten 

 the exact spot made sacred by the planting of 

 trees, and Professor Baker and myself searched 

 some time before we found the surviving relics, 

 well overgrown by Jack pines, which came up 

 from seeds and had overtaken and much over- 

 topped the trees that had been planted. It was 

 September 1, 1909, that Professor Baker and my- 

 self made a visit to those trees, finding common 

 locusts seven feet high and mostly smaller, with 



a very few in lowest places fourteen feet to over 

 eighteen feet in one case. The best white pine 

 was sixteen feet high, diameter three inches, all 

 grown from a few inches high in twenty-one 

 summers. At this rate of starting it would take 

 such trees 100 years to become a foot in diameter. 

 Norway spruces were found, with short, yellow- 

 ish-green leaves, bushy, the size of a peck measure 

 to a bushel basket, with a very few fourteen to 

 sixteen feet high, the best one was one and seven- 

 tenths inches in diameter, measured four and one- 

 half feet from the ground. 



Will it pay capitalists or the State to grow lum- 

 ber on Jack-pine land ? We must count in the 

 cost of growing, seeds, and growing small trees 

 in the nursery, preparing the land, planting the 

 trees and cultivating them for two or three years, 

 counting the cost of patrolling against fire and 

 thieves and at the end of 100 years have the 

 .pleasure of harvesting a crop of Norway pines, 

 when the height is sixty or seventy feet and 

 diameter fifteen inches, counting the thickness of 

 the bark. In many portions of the south half of 

 the southern peninsula, white pines will attain tc 

 a height of one hundred and seventy-five feet 

 and a diameter of inches. The farmers of the 

 southern portion of the state do not need to wait 

 100 years before beginning to harvest valuabli 

 timber, not even twenty-five years ; for basswood, 

 hickory, white ash, American elm, locust, chest- 

 nut, perhaps catalpa grow rapidly and make sale- 

 able timber when young, and these four crops of 

 timber can be harvested, while Jack-pine land at 

 least is growing one poor crop. 



Trees at Grayling Grown in 22 Summers. 

 (The diameter measurements were all taker 

 4J4 feet from the ground.) 



Height. Diameter. 



3 Best European Lardies 17 ft. 3.9 in 



14 Best Norway Spruces 18.2ft. 



5 Best White Spruces 11.3ft. 



Best Scotch Pine ..24 ft. 



2.8 ir 



1.9 in 

 8.2 ir 

 2.98 ir 

 4.25 ir 



?>8 White Pines (all in one row). 14. 2 ft. 

 18 Red Pines 18.5ft. 



Au Sable (Grown 21 Summers). 



1 Best White Pine 16 ft. 3 



1 Best Norway Spruce 16 ft. 1.7 



At the Agricultural College three chestnut tn 

 grown 22 summers make the following showing: 

 All arc 37 feet high. One one foot from ground 

 is 8.25 in. in diameter; another 25 feet from 

 ground is 4.25 in. in diameter, and the third 3' 

 feet from ground 2.75 in. in diameter. 



Two hundred and fourteen white pines of 

 summers' growth are 24 feet high and five inch 

 in diameter. 175 white pines, same growth, 26 

 feet high and 5.5 inches in diameter; best white 

 pine of 30 summers' growth is 60 feet high, 9.5 

 inches in diameter ; best common locust, 30 sum- 

 mers' growth, 71 feet high, 15 inches diameter; 

 chestnut, 30 summers' growth, 60 feet high, 13 

 inches in diameter. Another chestnut, same 

 growth, 68 feet high, same diameter. All the 

 diameters were measured 4.5 feet from th< 

 ground. 



im 



; 



[SECRETARY'S NOTE. Dr. Seals' paper, no doui 

 is correct in the main features, but there is sonn 

 clanger of its being misunderstood. While the 

 good lands produce more timber and more money 

 absolutely and relatively, there is no intention of 

 discouraging the use of poor lands for forestry. 

 These poor lands simply will product no other 

 paying crop/and the choice, therefore, is obvious. 

 It is timber or nothing.] 



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