FORESTRY. 219 



soil has strength. By our roadsides we find certainly as 

 good soil as we find in the fields. In these places, there 

 may be encouragement to plant the black walnut. It is 

 easily raised ; it grows to great size, and a black- walnut tree 

 a hundred years old may be from four to five and six feet in 

 diameter, and, cut up into lumber, it is worth a hundred 

 dollars per thousand. It is the last years of the growth of 

 that tree which give it its value. There seems to be some 

 mysterious and peculiar property that is wrought out in the 

 tissues and fibres of the tree by age. It is like the ripening 

 of man. The last years of a true man should be better than 

 any that have preceded it. And so it is with the structure 

 of a tree. As the tree matures in its age, the sap wood 

 hardens more and more until the extreme limit of ao^e is 

 reached. You will find in an aged tree that the sap wood is 

 about the thickness of my hand, and the interior will be 

 solid and durable, and when properly prepared for the mar- 

 ket it will have the highest value possible to be attained for 

 lumber that is the product of the temperate zone, and fit for 

 the most skilful labor of the builder or the cabinet maker. 



There has been a point raised about the maple. I want 

 to explain how that came up. In the hurried manner in 

 which I was obliged to speak this morning, I simply touched 

 upon the maple. I should have described the maple as has 

 been done by Mr. Manning, for there are several types of 

 that tree. But the point I was coming at was, the certainty 

 with which certain types of the maple which are familiar to 

 us all could be grown ; the seeds obtained, and within a 

 year little trees started, thus accelerating the time within 

 which you can get a fine growth of firewood. We raise 

 one tree for one use, another tree for another use. It is 

 within the power of all our farmers to set apart some portions 

 of their farms which may be less valuable for agriculture 

 than others, and have their little plantation of trees, where 

 they can raise their own firewood speedily and satisfactorily 

 and have it at their own hands. It can be made a very 

 profitable crop for that use. The maple is not very valuable 

 for timber, but it makes a very rapid growth. If planted 

 thickly and cared for, it will throw up a fine, handsome top, 

 and, of course, as it limbs out and is thinned, you will get 

 a fine growth of wood. 



