AMERICAN FORESTRY 



104 



There is hardlv a thinking man or woman to whom 

 there doa not v.inetimes come the old instinct and long- 

 ing to get back to nature and the land. Youth seeks the 

 competition of life with others iii the city, but mature 

 can bring the desire for the peaceful life of the country. 

 "The hov on the farm dreams of the day when he can 

 be the president of a bank, have a home in the city, own 

 an automobile, smoke good cigars and go to the show 

 every night. The bank president dreams of the day when 

 be can turn again to the farm and walk in the green 

 Bddt, where he can shun the various artificial activities 

 of city life, drink buttermilk and retire with the 

 chickens." 



For him, or for anyone, there is no more peace-giving 

 occupation than horticulture and no more fascinating 

 branch of horticulture than nut growing. Let him use 

 his leisure time, whether it be much or little, in learning 

 to bud and graft nut trees, in growing seedling almonds 

 in the search for a hardy, thin-shelled variety, in experi- 

 menting with the pine nuts, in breeding blight-immune 

 chestnuts and filberts. The solution of any one of these 

 problems will be of immense value to the country. And 

 let him produce some of the infinite series of hybrid nuts 

 that lie within the probabilities of the future. No man 

 can have a better hobby, that universal need, than nut 

 growing. 



BIRCH TREE SPLITS GRANITE BOULDER 



TI 1 E roots of plants and trees play an important 

 part in converting rocks into soil. All rocks have 

 seams or cracks or eventually develop them 

 through the action of rain, frost and sunshine. Into 

 these cracks, however minute, the rootlets of small plants 

 penetrate, carrying with them a little humus to decay and 

 to be followed by other roots. Moisture follows which 

 freezes and cracks off small rock particles, when larger 

 roots find their way in, carrying more dirt. Through the 

 course of many years the crack widens and deepens and 

 becomes filled with drifting dirt, when perhaps a tree 

 seed blows into it, and then the real process of rock split- 

 ting begins. The expansive force of a tree root is tre- 

 mendous, and if the rock has a well-developed seam it is 

 likely to be riven entirely asunder. As the rock breaks 

 and chips and disintegrates, it contributes to the vigor of 

 the plant, since rock particles contain the elements of 

 plant food. Some rocks are cracked by loots much more 

 easily than others, yet even granite boulders are some- 

 times riven by tree roots where the rock has been seamed 

 and weakened by various disintegrating agents. The 

 photograph shows a granite boulder in Maine being 

 slowly split by a birch tree. 



THE WILLOW INDUSTRY 



Fl )M investigations carried on by The New York 

 State College of Forestry at Syracuse in the basket 

 willow growing section about Liverpool and Lyons 

 in New York State and in the study of reports of basket 

 manufacturers, it finds that the bulk of the willow ware 







BIRCH SPLITS A BOULDER 



Even Maine granite, hard as it is, cannot resist the expansive force of 

 the roots of the birch shown in this picture. 



used in the United States is manufactured in the little 

 town of Liverpool just north of Syracuse. The Liverpool 

 shops use over 3,000 tons of basket willow stock which is 

 75 per cent of the total stock used in the country. 



About a year ago basket willow stock was bringing 

 from $20 to $25 per ton delivered at the Liverpool fac- 

 tories. Today, owing to the cutting off of the foreign 

 supply the prices average about $30 a ton, and that in 

 spite of the increased local production. 



7,300 ACRES WITHDRAWN 



UPON the recommendation of Secretaries Lane 

 and Houston, the President recently signed an 

 order excluding 7,300 acres from the Pike Na- 

 tional Forest, in Colorado. Of this amount about 6,000 

 acres are vacant public lands subject to settlement under 

 the homestead laws in advance of entry or other forms 

 of disposition. Such lands will be subject to settlement 

 from 9 o'clock a. m. March 31st until and including 

 April 27, 1916, and thereafter to disposition under any 

 public land law applicable thereto. The lands are located 

 in the central part of Colorado in Park County, and are 

 within the Leadville land district. They are non-con- 

 tiguous tracts in the foothills lying along the exterior 

 boundaries of the southwestern part of the National 

 Forest, and are non-agricultural grazing lands. 



