FOREST TREE PLANTING. 55 



faction to the planter and his children. It is good to encourage the 

 planting and growth of nut-bearing trees ; the right to their fiuit 

 can be enforced. Man}' of them, like the Hickor\' and Chestnut, 

 are difficult to transplant, having long tap-roots ; which are a source 

 of vigor of growth ; and the best way to raise them is to put a nut 

 into the ground wherever a tree is wanted. The black walnut tree 

 will grow here, and makes the most valuable lumber, good boards 

 being worth $125 per 1,000 feet; but it is a tree to grow for 100 

 years hence ; it requires 50 years to grow, and 50 more to solidifj- 

 and mature. A tree 50 3'ears old has not half the value of one 100 

 years old. 



The speaker called at a place in Hampden count}-, which afforded 

 an illustration of what a farmer can do b}' caring for a wood-lot. 

 In a 40-acre lot on this farm the thinnings last year comprised 

 500 chestnut railroad ties, which sold at from 50 to 60 cents each. 

 Basswood, in some places, brings $8 per cord, for paper stock. We 

 must study the growth of trees, and the soils and markets, and adapt 

 them to each other. There is an exigenc}' for applying a system 

 of forest planting to whole districts in New England. In the best 

 farming districts there are abandoned farms, within 65 miles of 

 Boston, where not a spear of grass grows that is of any use to 

 man, and the only thing to be done is to let them grow up to 

 wood. 



Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, who had just come in, was called on, 

 and said that he had heard only Col. Wilson's remarks, which he 

 fully approved. We have a great quantity of land in New Eng- 

 land which can be made productive onl}' b}' planting with trees. 

 There are still immense quantities of timber in Alaska, Oregon, 

 and Mexico, which will afford supplies for a long time to come. 

 The necessity for planting forests in New England has been over- 

 looked, but a spirit is now abroad which is arousing the people to 

 its importance, and he thought we should not realize the fears which 

 have been entertained of the exhaustion of the supph' of lumber, 

 and of other evils arising from the destruction of our forests. 



It was announced that on the next Saturda}' Edward L. Beard 

 would read a paper on " Herbaceous Plants vs. Bedding Plants." 



