1060 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



to a perfect circle of 

 younger trees around 

 the spot on which it 

 stood. It would be 

 possible for foresters 

 to renew a redwood 

 forest through the 

 sprout growth, and 

 there are now on the 

 hills in the neighbor- 

 hood of Redwood 

 City, California, fair 

 sized growths of red- 

 wood trees which 

 have come up since 

 the lumbermen cut off 

 the timber fifty or 

 sixty years ago. Usu- 

 ally, however, for- 

 esters depend upon 

 standing trees to fur- 

 nish seed for the new 

 growth of cone-bear- 

 ing trees; when there 

 are no trees to fur- 

 nish such seed they 

 plant the seed in beds 

 and raise the seed- 

 lings to be planted out 

 where the trees are to 

 stand in the forest. 



In Germany, forest- 

 ers have done much toward raising new forests by leav- 

 ing the older trees to furnish seeds, and under these 

 trees, when fires are kept out, the little new ones will 

 come up as thick as they can stand together. 



Almost all of the broadleaf or hardwood trees, in- 

 cluding most of those which lose their leaves in the fall, 

 will sprout from the stump or the roots when they are cut 

 down. Some of them will sprout more readily than 

 others. Hickory is one that is always likely to sprout, 

 and sprout-growth or second-growth hickory is con- 

 sidered better than that from the older trees which de- 

 velop from .seed, because the sprouts grow very rapidly 

 on account of the stored-up life in the roots of the old 

 tree ; and the more rapid the growth which a hickory tree 

 makes, the more likely is the wood to be tough, strong 

 and elastic. Chestnut trees also sprout readily, and the 

 strong, straight sprouts furnish better material for tele- 

 graph and telephone poles than the older and more 

 branchy first growth trees. Basswood or linden is an- 

 other tree which sprouts readily. 



Where there is a forest of useful broadleaf trees, 

 which can be depended on to grow from sprouts, there 

 is little need for seed trees, and such forests can be 

 managed on what is known as a coppice or sprout growth 

 plan. This plan is carried out in Europe, where there 

 is a demand for small faggots for fuel wood and for 

 the making of charcoal. In England, for example, there 



are many such tracts, 

 or copses, given over 

 to the production of 

 this kind of wood. 



B 



A CIRCLK OK REDWOOD TREES 



i^ach one of them is many times thicker than a man's body, 



come up around the stump of a much larger parent tree, 



They have evidently 



.\SKET mak- 

 ers depend on 

 this sprouting 

 capacity for the wil- 

 low reeds from which 

 hampers and baskets 

 are made. Each year 

 the willow trees are 

 cut back, either at or 

 near the surface of 

 the ground, or else at 

 the top of a short 

 trunk, and the new 

 straight sprouts, 

 when peeled and 

 bleached, furnish the 

 material for all sorts 

 of basket work. Bas- 

 kets, by the way, fur- 

 nish one of the oldest 

 forms o f carriers 

 known to man, and 

 are still among the 

 best of such forms 

 for lightness, strength 

 and cheapness. 



The willows, some 

 of the poplars, and 

 other quick-growing, moisture-loving trees will grow 

 from detached pieces. New sand bars, in rivers along 

 which willows grow as the Mississippi, soon become 

 covered with willow trees, which have started from 

 branches that have floated down stream and have stranded 

 on the bar, becoming partly bedded in the moist sand ; 

 or even while they are in the water they begin to sprout 

 and soon send roots down into the sand and leaves and 

 branches up into the air. 



Growers of basket willows take advantage of this 

 property and new willow plantations are set out each year 

 from cuttings or short willow sticks set in the ground 

 and kept moist. 



Sometimes this ability of the willows to sprout causes 

 unexpected results. A farmer, not far from the Luray 

 Caves in Virginia, wanted to bring the waters of a 

 spring up on the mountainside down into his dooryard 

 He ran a line of pipes underground from the spring 

 to the back porch of his house and there set up a log 

 which he had hollowed out to a point about three feet 

 from the ground, where he bored a hole and inserted a 

 hollow wooden spout or plug. The water ran from the 

 spring and came out through the spout a good deal like 

 the spout of a pump only it ran constantly, and there 

 was no need for a pump handle. This pump-stock had 

 not been in use very long before green branches reached 

 out from the top of the stump, and in a comparatively 



