FORESTRY. 223 



else ; but at the same time I believe that there are acres of 

 land in this Commonwealth where the white birch is indi- 

 genous. It comes up itself, and if our farmers will go about 

 and see that the seed is distributed in the soil, they can, in a 

 very few years, derive considerable income from these trees. 

 That is worth considering. I have seen many pasture lands 

 that were not fit for anything else, and evidently the owner 

 was oblivious to the fact that he might get as much income 

 out of birches planted on that land as out of a cornfield. 



The Chairman. Within the last week, I have seen two 

 or three loads of white-birch sticks carted through this vil- 

 lajgre, I believe towards the lime kilns of Canaan. I thouijht 

 if there was a market there, there was a prospective bonanza 

 for some of our Berkshire farmers. 



Mr. Manning. There is a very great demand for it. 



The Chairman. I would like to ask Mr. Manninsr if the 

 holly is a hardy tree in this latitude. 



Mr. Manning. Yes, sir; the tree is hardy enough. The 

 reason you do not see many is because they have been trans- 

 planted without reducing the top at all, and the consequence 

 is they generally die. I had, perhaps, a thousand small 

 ones last spring, less than a foot high, that came to me from 

 Philadelphia, and nearly every one lived. They w^ere set 

 out in moist ground and cut back very severely. They were 

 cut back from six to eight feet. My son had seen them in 

 Philadelphia last spring ; I had seen them also, and I ordered 

 a thousand of them. They had been transplanted just a 

 year before. If they had never been transplanted, we should 

 have lost them all. A landscape gardener came to me for 

 trees, and after looking around carefully, he said he would 

 not have a tree unless it had been moved within two or three 

 years. He took five hundred and eighty-two trees, from 

 four to eighteen feet high, and reported twenty-six dead 

 ones. Those are my loss. He carted them twenty miles. 

 If they had not been moved frequently, he would not have 

 saved them. 



Mr. BuzBY. Do you allow walnuts and acorns to dry 

 after you gather them ? 



Mr. jSIanning. They ought not to dry. 



Adjourned to Thursday, at ten o'clock. 



