PAPERS READ BEFORE THE ASSOCIATION, 



11 



mate. Young trees should be invariably 

 planted, the younger the better. They are 

 less expensive and more sure to live. In 

 transplanting from the shady canons, great 

 care is required, and the tree protected from 

 the sun as much as possible for some time 

 after it is planted. One of the most import- 

 ant parts of the successful growth of trees is 

 fall and winter watering; often trees are lost 

 from want of water during the winter. They 

 should be thoroughly watered just before 

 the ground freezes up in the fall and again 

 during the dry, warm spell that generally 

 comes in the early part of February. 



It is better for the inexperienced to plant 

 at first only a few of the better-tested sorts of 

 trees. The work is t.aus simplified and 

 better performed. When experience is gained 

 and an intelligent interest in trees estab- 

 lished, the planter may, at his own pleasure, 

 experiment with less common tree-j, testing 

 their value and adding them to his planta- 

 tion as he finds them to serve, his purpose. 

 His tree-planting now becomes a source of 

 constant enjoyment. The trees are his 

 friends and he delights to widen his ac- 

 quaintance among them. 



I will conclude with the words of Sir 

 Walter Scott to his forester: "Be aye stickin' 

 in a tree; it will be growin' when ye're 

 sleepin'." 



FACTS ABOUT FORESTRY. 



BY WM. E. PABOR, OF FRUITA. 



Only a tree! 



But think of it something that Nature 

 takes peculiar pride in and endows with a 

 longevity equal sometimes to seventy genera- 

 tions of mankind. What solemn and strange 

 thoughts must enter the mind of a pilgrim 

 who, traversing the island of Ceylon, stands 

 at last in the shadow of that sacred fig tree 

 whose age, historically determined, fixes the 

 date of its planting 288 years before the 

 Christian era dawned upon the world. In 

 the year 414 this same tree was seen and de- 

 scribed by a Chinese traveler, who found it 

 an object of adoration and worship. In later 

 centuries the earliest Europeans who visited 

 the country gave testimony as to its venerable 

 age. It still flourishes, a holy tree in every 

 sense of the word to the Budhists who worship 

 about its rugged trunk and under its gnarled 

 limbg. Even in our own land, among the 

 redwood forests of California, there are trees 

 whose size indicate an age equal and perhaps 

 superior to the fig tree of Ceylon. What, 

 then, is the life of man compared to the life 

 of a tree? Well might this noble object of 

 Nature have had a peculiar sanctity in 



Egypt and Greece, which feeling was fostered 

 by imposing and impressive rites and cere- 

 mo ales connected with their Deities. The 

 oak was consecrated to Jupiter, the joy io 

 Bacchus, the olive to Minerva and the laurel 

 to Apollo. As Kendrick says in his Ancient 

 Egypt: "Their susceptibility to atmospheric 

 influence may have invested them with a 

 prophetic virtue in regard to changes of 

 weather." Their longevity may have caused 

 them to be regarded as emblems of divine 

 power and duration and to be invested with 

 something of that mysterious awe which at- 

 taches to everything that has witnessed ages 

 and generations long passed away. 



But man can be cruel, though his life be 

 so brief, and the ax in the sturdy work- 

 man's hand can destroy in a day the beauti- 

 ful temple that the earth and the air, the 

 sunshine and the rain have combined to 

 build into a lofty structure whose roots pen- 

 etrate deep into the very heart of nature, 

 and whose brow is lifted high into the arcana 

 above us. 



It is because man has been, and still is, 

 thus cruel, that we have met to take counsel 

 together to devise some means by which the 

 trees of the forest may be spared from whole- 

 sale destruction. We learn from the census 

 reports that the consumption of wood as fuel 

 for the census year of 1880 amounted to 140,- 

 537,439 cords, valued at $306,950,040. In 

 addition to this use of wood for domestic 

 purposes, railroads, steamboats, mines and 

 manufactories used 145,778,138 cords, having 

 a value of $321,962,273. So that, in one year 

 only, have the startling figures of over six 

 hundred million cords of wood consumed, 

 representing a value of over seven hundred 

 million of dollars, about one-third of the 

 national debt of the United States. This 

 use is domestic and industrial and therefore 

 legitimate and justifiable; but what shall we 

 say when we come to consider the area of 

 forests that the igniting of a single match in 

 the hands of a careless hunter or tourist may 

 sweep out of existence? Can language too 

 strong be used in condemnation of such care- 

 lessness or maliciousness ? Can our words be 

 too plain or too loud in our appeal for some 

 meamre of restraint strong enough to stay 

 the destroying touch ? 



A few years ago Dr. E. E. Edwards, then 

 President of our Agricultural College, pre- 

 pared an address on the Utility of Trees, and 

 delivered it at different institutes held by the 

 farmers in various parts of the State. In 

 January, 1880, he delivered this lecture at 

 Monument, on the Divide, in a section where 

 the trees, for the last twenty years, have suf- 

 fered most from the destroying hand of man. 

 Here are some of the significant words he 



