23S 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



stantial framed work, with good white oak sills and small 

 joyst, and ye upper floors to be laid with plank and ye 

 roof to be double raftered, and good principal rafters 

 every ten foote, and to be double studded below, and to 

 be well braced, and windows convenient, and shutters, 

 and good large stairs into ye chambers, which chambers 

 are to be forty foote square at each end of ye house and 

 twenty foote between them, and for other conveniences 

 to be left to direction of ye aforesaid friends." 



Any builder will wonder how these good folks could 

 build two rooms forty foot square with twenty feet be- 

 tween them in a building sixty feet long. But the contract 

 is clear and the building is open for inspection to see it. 



The only preservative used on the wood has been old 

 fashioned whitewash on the outside. Seven of the 

 original plank seats and the wood work inside have had 

 no paint whatever. White oak, white pine, cypress and 

 Southern pine from the Maryland forests of those days 

 were the woods used. They seem in as good condition as 

 when first used, except the roof shingles and some of the 

 weather-boarding which have been occasionally replaced. 



If there is an older building of wood in the United 



States standing where it was built without any additions 

 or subtractions, or changes, and with an unbroken authen- 

 tic record, year by year of its entire history for twenty- 

 four decades I have failed to find it. Others like Paul 

 Revere's House in Boston are restored and like the 

 Old Ship Church at Hingham, Massachusetts, have 

 had additions or alterations, though some of the original 

 lumber still remains. 



Certainly this plain building, in which have worship- 

 ped many of the leading people of Maryland for nearly 

 240 years from the days of Lord Baltimore and William 

 Penn, down to the present time, situated on a beautiful 

 slope in a quiet restful grove of old trees is worth the 

 time and trouble of a visit. Although the congregation 

 which owns it is one of the wealthiest in Maryland, they 

 still maintain the beautiful customs of their faith sim- 

 plicity, sobriety, industry, sincerity, kindness, hospitality, 

 and are as their forefathers who worshipped here before 

 them, leaders in the county and State. No price could 

 purchase or change this historic place of worship of their 

 fathers. It remains a beautiful remnant of the Colonial 

 days of nearly two and a half centuries ago. 



REJUVENATING PECAN TREES 



BY O. B. STRAYER 



T RECENTLY ran across an item that I thought would 

 -*- be of interest to pecan and orange growers. It deals 

 with a method in fruit and nut growing that is practically 

 unknown to most growers. 



Mrs. T. A. Banning, Robertsdale, Alabama, has con- 

 ducted a pecan and satsuma orange grove for a number of 

 years. A few years ago she became very much alarmed 

 because the pecan trees especially began showing signs of 

 disease. The nuts dropped off before maturing and the 

 trees presented a general sickly appearance. She was 

 advised that the difficulty was due to hard soil, which 

 prevented the roots from making normal new growth 

 into fresh feeding ground, and also prevented the free 

 circulation of moisture in the soil. This was about the 

 time that dynamite first began to be advocated for rem- 

 edying that kind of soil condition. 



Mrs. Banning decided to try it. The plan adopted was 

 to put down a bore hole about 3 to 4 feet deep, depend- 

 ing on the size of the tree, and located from 3 to 5 feet 



out from the trunk. Into the hole is tamped a smooth 

 charge of low-grade dynamite. This charge ranges from 

 one-quarter to one-half pound. The charge is fired with 

 an ordinary cap and fuse. The next year a similar shot 

 is set off on the opposite side of the tree. If the tree is large 

 the shots are sometimes put down in triangular form, spaced 

 about an equal distance apart on three sides of the tree. 



Mrs. Banning says that her trees responded splendidly 

 to this treatment. Later on, when setting out 2000 pecan 

 trees and 500 satsuma oranges, they were planted in 

 blasted holes in the first place. She reasoned that if the 

 blasting helped the old trees it would give the young 

 ones a better start and insure faster growth. She stated 

 that this reasoning had been proven correct by the prog- 

 ress of the trees, because all of them set by that method 

 did exceptionally well from the beginning. 



The blasting costs very little, as the use of dynamite 

 saves a large part of the laborer's time that would be 

 required to dig a tree hole of proper size. 



BOYS' REFORESTATION CLUBS IN LOUISIANA 



YV/HAT is believed to be an entirely new idea in 

 forestry, or more properly speaking in forestry 

 education, has just been announced by the Louisi- 

 ana Department of Conservation through Commissioner 

 Alexander. This idea is the formation throughout the 

 State of what will be known as Boys' Reforestation 

 Clubs. These clubs will be along the same general lines 

 as Boys' Pig Clubs, Corn Clubs, etc. The Boys' Club 

 Agent of the State, Mr. W. C. Abbott, is co-operating 

 with the Conservation Department, so that boys joining 

 local clubs anywhere in the State can choose a refor- 



estation project as a basis for membership in the club. 

 The object of the reforestation clubs was described 

 at a recent meeting of the Forestry Advisory Board of 

 the department by Colonel W. H. Sullivan, the originator 

 of the plan. Colonel Sullivan is general manager of the 

 Great Southern Lumber Company and of the Bogalusa 

 Paper Company, at Bogalusa, Louisiana, and was recent- 

 ly appointed to the forestry board by Governor Parker 

 because of the great interest which his own companies 

 are taking in reforestation. The other members of the 

 board as recently appointed by the Governor are M. L. 



