i8 



THE FORESTER. 



January 



years, furnishing all the posts needed on 

 a large farm. This is a convenience that 

 can only be appreciated by those who 

 have to have posts and who have not 

 the money to buy iron posts with that 

 our friend Haslett recommended so 

 highly. I have urged young farmers to 

 plant Locust groves for shade, for wind- 

 breaks, for beauty and for poles and 

 posts ; but not many of them will do it. 

 In this fast age of steam and electricity 

 people cannot wait for trees to grow. 

 Yet how few there are who do not ad- 

 mire a grove of thrifty trees. In my 

 opinion the State Board of Agriculture 

 could not do a wiser thing than to de- 

 vote a few acres of the fair grounds to 

 tree culture, planting and preserving in 

 it all of the various kinds of trees that 

 grew originally in our forests. It would 

 beautify the grounds and would be one 

 of the attractions for visitors and an ob- 

 ject lesson that w T ould awaken and stimu- 

 late an interest in the subject of forestry. 

 James N. Hill in Indiana Farmer. 



rado J. E. Payne, of Cheyenne County, 

 finds the black locust the most accepta- 

 ble tree, with the honey locust second 

 choice. The Russian Artemisia, which 

 was so well recommended, has not done 

 very well. Out of 900 planted only four 

 remain on account of winter-killing. The 

 Russian mulberry is more promising and 

 the ash is a slow but sure grower. The 

 sand plum will do, and so may other 

 varieties of the wild plum ; but the most 

 essential thing to observe in tree plant- 

 ing on the great plains without irri- 

 gation is to plow and subsoil or even 

 dynamite the land, and if possible plow 

 diagonal furrows in from higher ground 

 so as to direct flood waters along the 

 tree rows whenever it rains hard, and in 

 this way get the benefit of the mois- 

 ture. 



For hedgerows and windbreaks on 

 the dry plateau uplands of eastern Colo- 



The Newtown (Pa.) Enterprise says 

 a Hickory tree, 100 feet in height, was 

 cut down a short time ago, on the farm 

 of David Slack, near Penn's Park, Buck 

 County. Eighty feet from the stump it 

 measured two feet in diameter. It will 

 be cut up into firewood. 



Sheep=Grazing in Forests. 



The people of Madera County, Cali- 

 fornia, have been circulating a petition 

 to the Commissioner of the General Land 

 Office praying for a rigid enforcement of 

 the forest reservation rules in the Sierra 

 Forest Reserve, and especially that sheep 

 be hereafter excluded from its bounds. 

 Among other things recited in the peti- 

 tion is the following, which illustrates 

 the determined stand which the people 

 of California have taken in regard to 

 sheep grazing : 



We memorialize you that sheep owners re- 

 tard the settlement and permanent growth of 

 wealth in the California valleys ; that years ago 

 they antagonized the irrigating canals and they 

 opposed the conversion of grazing lands in to 

 wheat ranches; that they once grazed their 

 flocks over the site of Fresno city, now the 

 center of the raisin industry, nestling amid 

 matchless orchards and splendid vineyards, 

 over land there and elsewhere, whose value as 



grazing lands was $1.25 per acre, but which is 

 now worth from $125 to $300 per acre. 



Therefore your petitioners pray that the Sierra 

 forests be preserved as nature's guardians to 

 protect our valleys, so that all lines of industry 

 may be developed side by side. 



And in the name of the common people of 

 Calitornia, in the name of our genial valley 

 awaiting the wealth of waters that nature has 

 provided for but avarice denies which valley 

 once baptized with crystal fountains would 

 smile to welcome sheep husbandry along with 

 sister industries and in the name of labor that 

 looks longingly out across broad acres unem- 

 ployed and is strong in hope and love to build 

 the future homes of the " Golden State," we 

 ask that the sheep be not allowed to range the 

 Sierras and despoil the God-given heritage of 

 forest and stream. 



A county "wool growers' protective 

 association " in Wyoming recently 

 adopted resolutions in which the decla- 

 ration was made that the regulation 

 which excludes sheep from forest re- 



