FORESTRY. 1 03 



maples, for example, or take five acres of any desirable kinds adapted to 

 his section of country. Let these be cultivated and watered say four or 

 five times a year. They may be pruned in the winter time when little or 

 nothing else can be done. At the end of the third year from planting* 

 one-half of these, or a third, might be easily sold for shade or other pur- 

 pose, if they were nice and smooth trees, at a handsome advance over 

 the original cost and the expense of cultivation. Each year thereafter 

 more than enough can be easily taken, by way of thinning out, to pay all 

 expenses. Now at the end of eight or ten years there should be any- 

 where from a thousand to fifteen hundred nice, thrifty trees to the acre, 

 and these should be on an average at least five inches in diameter, and 

 from twenty to twenty-five feet high. Here we have then on five acres, 

 say six thousand trees after making due allowance for losses from any 

 cause. Trees of this age of any good hard wood variety are worth for 

 mechanical purposes, at least fifty cents each, and those suitable for trans- 

 planting (any good street tree) even at half the size, has always sold 

 readily at that price ; and to-day fifty thousand nice street trees like the 

 elm, box elder and soft maple from two to four inches in diameter would 

 find quick sale at from twenty-five to fifty cents each at -wholesale, (many 

 people in the West will plant nothing but a large tree,) in Colorado and 

 Wyoming. The demand in all this region for years to come will be 

 extensive, and any person who has a well-grown street tree even, need not 

 have difficulty in finding a purchaser. 



For mechanical purposes trees like the ash, cherry and black walnut 

 are always in demand wherever they can be got to market. But to return 

 to figures : We have six thousand trees ten years of age worth at least 

 fifty cents each, or $3,000, (and this figure would be low, even on an 

 Eastern basis for some of the varieties,) giving a profit of sixty dollars 

 per acre for the entire time. If nut-bearing trees were set, and they do 

 exceedingly well in portions of Colorado, they should be of producing 

 size by the end of ten years. The estimate on trees so valuable for the 

 arts as some we have named, we believe much too low. These figures are 

 made with some knowledge of results, and are in no sense exagger- 

 ated. The serious drawback to tree culture is that people are often 

 unwilling to give trees good soil or even fair treatment. They are too 

 apt to be stuck in the ground and left to take care of themselves. This 

 never pays. 



