214 



THE FORESTER. 



September, 



ing and subsequent care, based upon a 

 personal examination of each tract of land 

 for which plans are made, and the appli- 

 cant must put them into execution. 



Experience has already shown that there 

 is a great demand for planting plans from 

 nearly all parts of the United States, and 

 during this past year such plans have been 

 made for farmers and other land owners 

 from Maine to California, and from North 

 Dakota to Texas. When the Section of 

 Tree Planting is only at the expense in- 

 curred in making the planting plans, and 

 when the plans where made for large areas 

 are paid for by the applicant, hundreds of 

 plans can be made to be put into execution 

 by others where very few could be made 

 and executed at equal expense to the 

 Division were the Division to undertake 

 the detailed care and direction of each 

 plantation. 



As one would naturally expect, the 

 greater number of planting plans have 

 been prepared for farmers on the prairie 

 lands of the Middle West. During the 

 fall of 1899 thirty-three plans were pre- 

 pared for this region, and are now being 

 put into execution by the persons for whom 

 they were made. Already this season be- 

 tween forty and fiftv planting plans have 

 been made for farmers in New Mexico, 



Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, while fully 

 as many more yet remain to be made for 

 farmers in Nebraska, Iowa, North Da- 

 kota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Illinois 

 and Indiana. During the year the Section 

 of Tree Planting will make in all prob- 

 ably about one hundred planting plans, all 

 based upon the personal examination of 

 each tract for which a plan is made. 



When it is remembered that these co- 

 operative plantations are scattered through- 

 out many States, and that the experts of 

 the Division in visiting the various sec- 

 tions of the country frequently arrange to 

 give lectures on the subject of trees and 

 tree planting, it is difficult to estimate the 

 value of the work in stimulating the 

 planting of forest trees according to the 

 most approved methods. In this connec- 

 tion it is interesting to note that nursery- 

 men and seed dealers report a larger sale 

 of seedling forest trees and tree seeds 

 during the past spring than during any 

 previous season since 1872, when there 

 was a great demand for both seeds and 

 trees to be planted upon tree claims in 

 the West. This increase in tree planting 

 has unquestionably been largely the result 

 of the activity of the Division of Forestry 

 and the impetus that it has given to tree 

 planting, particularly in the prairie States. 



SECOND GROWTH PINE vs. AGRICULTURE. 



BY W. M. HAYS, 



University of Mi/iriesota . 



The article on Second Growth Pine vs. 

 Agriculture, in the FORESTER of last No- 

 vember, by Ernest Brucken, touches a 

 ver\ important subject. It is most un- 

 fortunate that the sandy tracts of land 

 suited to the growth of White Pine, but 

 imsuite.l to supporting farmers, are being 

 sold, even at low prices, to settlers who 

 would in the end be much better off on a 

 smaller number of acres of good farm 

 l.md -costing them a higher price per acre. 



From the standpoint of the agriculturist 



who seeks the best interests of the settlers 

 it is a misfortune for state and country to 

 have these sandy lands brought under 

 cultivation and exhausted of their small 

 amount of fertility. But now the untu- 

 tored foreigner, the susceptible easterner, 

 and the would-be farmer from the city are 

 constantly being hawked into setttling on 

 them by western land agents. These agents 

 in boom times are so saturated with "boom 

 talk " that they come to believe that sandy 

 soil is " sandy loam with a clay subsoil." 



