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AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



201 



ond thinning, at from fifteen to twenty 

 years, according to the rapidity of growth, 

 one-half of the remaining trees may be re- 

 moved giving each of the remaining 6S0 

 trees sixty-four square feet of space or 

 room for limbs four feet in length. These 

 thinnings would to most farmers be of 

 value for fencing, fire wood, and other 

 purposes. 



Some planters in localities near shook 

 or box-mills, would quite likely let these 

 6S0 trees stand till thirty-five or forty 

 years of age, and then sell the entire yield 

 of about forty cords of marketable small 

 boxwood logs or shook timber. A strik- 

 ing example of this plan is shown in the 

 experiment of Hon. Augustus Pratt, of the 

 Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, who 

 planted thirteen acres in White Pine, from 

 which, forty years after planting the seed 

 he cut forty or more cords of box-wood 

 logs to the acre and received for same $6 

 per cord at the mill. 



Reckoning the four dollars original in- 

 vestment to have doubled three times dur- 

 ing these years by means of taxes and in- 

 terest the expense of production would 

 have become thirty-two dollars; and the 

 forty cords of boxwood logs sold at four 

 dollars on the stump, would bring $160. 

 Subtracting $32 for expense of production 

 from the $160 received for sale of timber 

 and there is left a net gain of $I2S, to say 

 nothing of the firewood, and the greatly 

 improved land. I see no way of figur- 

 ing on Mr. Piatt's plantation without 

 making it profitable. A few years after 

 cutting as above stated he had five acres 

 planted the same as those cut, which were 

 worth more than $1,000. 



If large timber was desired a third thin- 

 ning would be made as soon as the trees 

 began to crowd each other, and perhaps 

 340 of the 6S0 be taken out and sold. If 

 the trees at this time are forty years of age 

 and yield like Mr. Pratt's, the thinning 

 would yield twenty cords to the acre, and 

 at his rate of selling bring $So on the 



stump, or by the foregoing estimate. 

 doubly pay for the entire investment and 

 taxes. Then a fourth thinning should fol- 

 low as soon as the trees are again crowded. 

 at perhaps from 45 to 50 years 1 . and 



about 1S0 trees taken out containing some 

 20,000 to 30,000 feet of timber, board 

 measure, worth in most locations from $3 

 to $6 per thousand on the stump. The 

 remaining 160 trees at eighty years of age 

 would contain from 50,000 to 80,000 feet, 

 board measure. Having the trees pi 

 erly pruned from ten years of age, at an 

 expense of one or two cents per tree, ti 

 butts for at least twenty feet, would be 

 clean lumber and of high market value. 

 Each reader can estimate the value of such 

 fine lumber in his own vicinity. 



If large trees were desired a fifth thin- 

 ning would be required when the trees 

 again crowded, and from So to 90 of the 

 160 trees taken out; for I think that not 

 over 70 or So large pines can be grown to 

 the acre. Indeed 70 pines each contain- 

 ing only 1,500 feet, board measure, or 

 105,000 feet to the acre would surprise 

 New Englanders if found in their section. 

 Yet I have seen rare trees here containing 

 5,000 feet, but it would take more than an 

 acre of land for 70 such to grow upon. 

 It would require too much space here for 

 me to outline the possibilities in the plant- 

 ing of Chestnut and Spruce, but the fore- 

 going will give some idea of what may be 

 done in the way of tree plantations in 

 New Hampshire. 



After making proper allowance for the 

 difference between theory and practice: 

 between profits figured on paper and those 

 crown on land, it certainly seems to me 

 that many of the great mass of farmers of 

 New England, owning in the aggregate 

 over a million acres of idle land, which 

 produces neither farm nor forest crop-. 

 could grow crops of lumber at a profit : 

 to sav nothing of the improved beaut] 

 the landscape and the betterment of cli- 

 matic conditions that would follow. 



