722 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Photograph by courtesy of the New York Sun 



WHILE THE WORK WAS BEING DONE 



This shows the famous old elm in the yard of the "Little Church Around the 

 Corner tn New York City with the scaffolding erected for treatment. 



TREE VALUES 



BY ALBERT F. W. VICK 



TREES are like human beings in many ways, 

 they occupy the same relative position in 

 their particular spheres ; one is the greatest 

 of plants, the other the greatest of animals, and 

 their worth-whileness is reckoned in much the 

 same way as we calculate a man's momentary 

 value. 



The big contractor or manufacturer who em- 

 ploys thousands and thousands of laborers, if 

 asked how much men are worth will immediately 

 quote you the maximum price being paid to day 

 workers. Just one man is not worth much when 

 there are millions of other men who can fill his 

 place on a moment's notice. This is exactly the 

 situation of our forest trees. Go to the forester 

 whose life work is the raising of timber for 

 market, or to the lumberman whose business it 

 is to sell the saw-mills' output, and they will give 

 you accurately the correct commercial values of 

 the raw and finished products, at best a pitifully 

 small amount per tree, for a single tree is not 

 worth much when there are millions of others 

 already leaning to the woodman's ax. 



Ask the man who hires only skilled workmen 

 or expert mechanics what his men are worth and 

 you will find that because of their special merit 

 these men are receiving four or five times as 

 much as common laborers. Talk with the intelli- 

 gent farmer of today and you will see that while 

 he may be fortunate in the possession of many 

 trees, he estimates the production of none of 

 them in timber terms. From his maples he re- 

 ceives syrup and sugar; his fruit and nut trees 

 return a substantial profit ; his groves of catalpa 

 and oak give him not only fence posts and fire- 

 wood but leaf-mould, an almost, priceless ferti- 

 lizer; and he knows that for his own comfort 

 and the well being of his cattle, shade around 

 his house and at the proper places in the pas- 

 tures is of much importance. To him each tree 

 has a definite value far in excess of the lumber 

 it might yield. 



There is no cut and dried salary limit for the 

 men of creative ability, for whether they pursue 

 art or business they are priceless, because upon 

 these men development itself is dependent. It is 

 the same with the important trees about a home, 

 in a park, or on a private estate. They are the 

 fundamental reasons for the investment of all 

 the money which has been or will be expended 

 upon the property, and upon thejr size, shape 

 and variety development of that property must 

 depend if the most ideal and picturesque results 

 are obtained. Not long ago I asked a well 

 known landscape architect, who had charge of 



