14 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



as in the varied forms of the architecture. The main 

 scheme is done in red and white, enlivened with browns 

 and yellows and blues. The colors stand out vividly or 

 ^hade into each other so imperceptibly that one is reminded 

 of some vast fantastic city of dreams. 



From the bottom of the canyon the formations take 

 on new shapes and become grotesque images of strange 

 beasts and men, as startling in their likeness as they differ 

 from the creatures they resemble. It is as though some 

 riotous imagination has carved from the colored rock all 

 the phantasmagorical creatures of its creation and set 

 them there for the favored visitor to see and wonder at. 



And all this is in a National Forest, not a National 

 Park, please remember, and an automobile can be driven 

 to the very edge of the canyon. The Sevier is only one of 

 150 National Forests, each of which has something beau- 

 tiful and unusual and worth seeing. There are many 

 indeed which have far more of interest than the Sevier, 

 but few people beside the members of the Forest Service 

 known about them. 



"N 



A LARGE SASSAFRAS TREE 

 By Bertha M. Tomlinson 

 a quaint old graveyard, directly opposite to the 



2,000,000 TREES FREE 



THE Pennsylvania Department of Forestry announces 

 that 2,000,000 forest tree seedlings will be available 

 for free distribution in the spring of 1917. The fol- 

 lowing species make up the number: White pine, 1,250,000; 

 Scotch pine, 410,000; Pitch pine, 200,000; Norway spruce, 

 75,000; European larch, 50,000; Japanese larch, 5,000; 

 Sugar maple, 5,000; White ash, 5,000. 



These are the seedlings over and above those which 

 will be planted on State Forests. Anyone can secure an 

 allotment of these trees if he will promise to use them for 

 reforesting within the state of Pennsylvania. No trees will 

 be furnished for shade or ornamental planting, nor will 

 any shipments be made in less than five hundred lots. 



RED SPIDERS INFEST TREES 



By Eugene W. Mendenhall 



THE red spider was quite bad in Ohio last summer, and 

 this is something rather unusual for this little insect to 

 infest trees and plants in open air, this far north, for 

 it thrives only in dry atmosphere and can be subdued upon 

 house plants by liberal use of water. When it occurs upon 

 plants in the open air it can be combated with any of the 

 washes found useful in destroying scale insects. 



I found it quite bad on the Kentucky coffee-nut trees 

 and also on the plum trees. 



The Kentucky coffee-nut trees were nearly all defoliated 

 before the trouble was known. The trees are on one of 

 the public school grounds of Troy, Ohio. The silvery 

 webs were spun entirely over the trees. 



The very dry summer accounts for the appearance of 

 these spiders in open air in Ohio. 



T 



Friends' Meeting House at Horsham, Pennsylvania, 



stands a noble sassafras tree, estimated to be 360 years 



old, whose age and unusual dimensions have made it an 



object of interest for many years. It stands as a monu- 



THE College of Agriculture of the University of Cali- 

 fornia announces a correspondence study course on 

 " Lumber and Its Uses." This course is prepared 

 by Professor M. B. Pratt of the Division of Forestry. 



SASSAFRAS AT HORSHAM, PENNSYLVANIA 

 This tree, about 360 years old, is now nineteen feet in circumference at the 

 ground and sixteen feet at a point breast high. Pioneer settlers of Pennsylvania 

 are buried under it. 



ment to the pioneer settlers of Pennsylvania who were 

 buried here as early as 1719. 



The first- measurements, of which record can be ob- 

 tained, were taken in 1852. At that time it was 13 feet in 

 circumference at 16 inches from the ground, carrying with 

 little diminution the same dimension on the trunk for 10 

 or 12 feet, where it divides into two huge branches. At 

 present it measures 19 feet in circumference at the ground 

 and 16 feet at about 5 feet from the ground. These dimen- 

 sions are enormous when compared with the average 

 Northern sassafras, which is seldom more than a foot in 

 diameter. The Horsham tree is now on the decline, the 

 trunk being hollow, but it is believed to be the record 

 sassafras tree in the United States. During the past winter 

 the top was broken off by the severe storms, so that but 

 19 feet of the main trunk is left standing. Before its 

 decline, the tree was estimated to be over 100 feet tall. 

 Some 20 years ago another sassafras equally as large as 

 this stood about half a mile distant. 



