IQOI.J FORESTRY. II 



had almost no value except as a second-rate shade tree. But 

 our pulp makers have ransacked the continent for suitable 

 wood for their mills, and they have decided that the Carolina 

 poplar has a value in their work, and that by the soda process 

 it will make a fair quality of paper. One company informs 

 me that it proposes to use forty thousand cords of it this year, 

 if it can get so much. Our Pennsylvania wood pulp makers 

 are already planting it for their use. 



It would seem wise, therefore, for us to consider some 

 of the possibilities of the Carolina poplar, as it appears to be 

 adapted to your climate. There may be planted of it say 400 

 .trees to the acre. This would allow each tree about ten feet 

 of space in which to grow. Planting them closely would cause 

 them to make straight, tall stems. In from fifteen to twenty 

 years each tree should make four lengths of pulpwood, that is, 

 a cut twenty feet long having a diameter of one foot at the 

 base and nine inches at the top. The cubic contents of this 

 would be, allowing for removed bark, over thirty-four cords 

 of wood to the acre. I have given here what I conceive to 

 be the lowest average yield. The chances are that the yield 

 would be a fourth larger. Now, mark, this is to come from 

 land which is incapable of producing any farm crop. There 

 is another method of producing Carolina poplar. I mean as 

 road-side shade trees, when, after they had served their pur- 

 pose, or a younger set was coming on, the older trees could be 

 removed. The aggregate of money which this State could 

 thus produce to advantage would be very large. All that I 

 have said of the poplar is true of its near relation the wil- 

 low, except that the latter requires rather moister ground. 

 It was my intention to have the merits of the white willow 

 tested as a producer of pulp wood when I discovered that it 

 was already being used successfully by one of the paper mills 

 of my State. 



In addition to the trees already enumerated, willow culture 

 for basket making appears to have a future. If this be so the 

 return will be speedy. I am not fully informed upon this sub- 

 ject, but would say so far as I can learn those who have gone 

 into it in Pennsylvania seem to be satisfied with the results. 



I have said nothing thus far upon the question of State 

 ownership of lands. Whether or not this is desirable would, I 

 suppose, depend somewhat upon the waste land which any 

 -State possessed. In Pennsylvania there happen to be several 



