152 



Canadian Forestry Journal, October, 1913 



folk 10 years ago, along the branch of the 

 Grand Trunk Railway that runs from Sim- 

 coe to Port Rowan, saw stretches of al- 

 most absolutely barren sand ridges, stumps 

 of trees showing up above the drift, once 

 in a while an old shed or a wagon half 

 buried in the sand. It was a dismal pros- 

 pect after passing through the lovely farm 

 and orchard country further north in .this 

 county. Yet it was the very prospect that 

 one day was to attract the attention of a 

 man who could see the possibilities of im- 

 provement. 



That man came in the person of Prof. 

 E. J. Zavitz, who had charge of the for- 

 estry work at the Ontario Agricultural 

 College, and who was sending out from 

 the nurseries connected with the college 

 the little treelets that were required by 

 the farmers of the province to restore 

 their wood lots. He saw the possibilities 

 of a work in Norfolk County that would 

 restore in considerable measure the use- 

 fulness of these stretches of abandoned 

 sand lands. When the situation was set 

 forth to the provincial department he was 

 authorized to move the Government's for- 

 est nurseries from Guelph to the new sta- 

 tion at St. Williams and to begin the 

 planting of these sandy tracts with trees 

 suited to the locality. The idea in the 

 minds of the officers of the department 

 was that such a plantation would demon- 

 strate to the farmers of Ontario how best 

 to proceed with the reforestation of such 

 lands elsewhere, in large or small tracts, 

 and would also demonstrate that reforesta- 

 tion of considerable blocks of these lands 

 could be profitably undertaken by muni- 

 cipalities or by individuals who could wait 



the time required for returns. For refor- 

 estation does not give its return at once; 

 it is a slow process to build up a forest 

 that has disappeared. 



Large Tracts Treated. 



The work began with the purchase by 

 the department of 300 acres of ridge land. 

 This has been increased until now there is 

 five or six times this area in process of 

 reclamation. Seedbeds and nursery rows 

 have been set out, and some of the worst 

 hills those whose tops were blowing into 

 the adjacent valleys and coveriug up the 

 fairly good land there, have been planted 

 out. These small trees, though planted in 

 what seems a veritable sandbank, without 

 a blade of grass to be seen for acres, have 

 done well, and, small as they are, have 

 held the sand from blowing. Fields fairly 

 level and available for nursery beds have 

 been sown to rye, cowpeas, clover, etc., and 

 the soil enriched by turning in the crop. 

 The results have been astonishing in many 

 cases. 



From these nursery beds hun(ireds of 

 thousands of seeding trees go out to On- 

 tario farmers and others. The demand is 

 increasing year by year as the value of the 

 work becomes known and the experiments 

 which are constantly under way at the 

 station are bringing together information 

 that materially assists in the whole fores- 

 try movement. The trees set out in per- 

 manent location on the plantations include 

 black locust, jackpine, Scotch pine and 

 white and red pine, while experiments are 

 also being conducted with ash, walnut, oak 

 and butternut. It has been found that the 

 black locust thrives best of all on these 

 Norfolk sand hills, though jackpine and 



Planting Seedlings in Nursery Bows. 



