SPECIAL KINDS OF FORESTS 189 



As to the best way of managing the woods, the farmer 

 forester has the widest choice. With him any method, if 

 at all applicable to the kinds of trees he wishes to raise, 

 will bring good results. Generally the common selection 

 method will prove most satisfactory, since, as we have 

 learned, it is well suited to all the different kinds of trees, 

 to all climates and soils, and incurs less danger of injury 

 by wind and insects. 



On an ordinary thirty-acre tract aljout three acres 

 may be gone over each year, cleaned and weeded of use- 

 less stuff, the denser thickets thinned, perhaps a few of 

 the oldest trees cut out, and all open spots restocked. 

 At first this will best be done by sowing and planting, 

 for if we wish to increase the proportion of white oak 

 and introduce pine and spruce, the only safe way is to 

 sow or plant in the manner before described. A small 

 basket of white-oak acorns, chestnuts, and beechnuts 

 sown in the fall, and a few hundred plants of white pine 

 raised from a few ounces of seed in a small flower bed 

 in the garden and set out in the spring, will soon pro- 

 duce a complete change in the complexion of this forest. 

 In many localities a few acres of good '• sugar bush " 

 may prove desirable, though frequently this is better 

 attained by trees along roads and fences and in open 

 groves about the farm premises. The same is true of 

 nut trees, of which a goodly number of the choicer kinds 

 should be grown on every farm. It is just as easy in 



