1904 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



397 



is that at the agricultural college at 

 Ames, Iowa, called the Iowa State Col- 

 lege. To fill this position it has chosen 

 Mr. Hugh P. Baker, of the Bureau of 

 Forestry. Mr. Baker is a graduate of 

 the Michigan Agricultural College and 

 the Yale Forest School, and has had a 

 wide experience in handling problems 

 in forestry in the West. He will lec- 

 ture at the college half of each year on 

 general forestry in its application to 

 Iowa conditions. The other half of 

 the year he will devote to Bureau work, 

 for the most part investigating forest 

 problems as they concern the State of 

 Iowa. 



Opportunity Throughout the North- 

 for Woodlot eastern States, from 

 Owners. Massachusetts to Mary- 



land, and as far \vest as 

 Indiana, chestnut holds an important 

 place as a timber tree. Commercially, 

 it is chiefly in demand for ties, telegraph 

 and telephone poles, and posts, for all of 

 which purposes, as well as for some con- 

 structional uses, it is especially adapted 

 by its peculiar power to resist decay in 

 contact with the soil. It is also largely 

 used for fuel and general farm purposes. 

 In Maryland alone, according to the 

 Twelfth Census, its annual market yield 

 of lumber, railroad ties, and telegraph 

 and telephone poles amounts to over 

 $100,000, besides large supplies of ma- 

 terial for local consumption. 



It happens that chestnut is especially 

 fitted for management in farmers' wood- 

 lots. Before scientific forestry began to 

 be heard of in the United States, and 

 when forest preservation was not un- 

 commonly talked about as a sentimental 

 fad, the thrifty owners of the small 

 tracts of woodland which cover so much 

 of southern New England, New York, 

 Pennsylvania, and neighboring states 

 had long been cutting successive crops 

 of the hardwoods which sprout rapidly 

 from the stump, thus practicing more or 

 less rudely what the forester calls the 

 ' ' pure coppice ' ' method of management. 

 The superior market for chestnut, com- 

 bined with its rapid growth, gave it, on 

 the whole, the leading place in the es- 

 teem of these woodlot owners, who by 



winter cutting were able to turn to good 

 account time for which farm occupa- 

 tions gave no other employment. 



The results of a study recently con- 

 ducted and soon to be published by the 

 Bureau of Forestry show strikingly the 

 advantages of chestnut for this kind of 

 management, and at the same time sug- 

 gest some very practical conclusions con- 

 cerning how the methods now in vogue 

 may be improved. Like other trees 

 which reproduce by sprouting, chestnut 

 loses its vigor when the root system be- 

 comes too old. Trees grown from seed 

 increase, both in height and bulk, more 

 slowly for many years than those grown 

 as sprouts from the stump. But by the 

 time the trees are from 80 to 100 years 

 old the seedling trees will catch up, and 

 eventually reach a larger size than the 

 others. For ordinary uses, however, 

 chestnut is cut long before this age is 

 reached, and coppicing is therefore the 

 best way to raise it. But unless new 

 seedling growth starts in the forest along 

 with the sprout growth, the declining 

 vigor of the old root systems will result 

 in smaller and smaller production until 

 only a sickly stand of inferior timber is 

 left to draw on. 



Chestnut tends to produce seed abun- 

 dantly, and if the nuts were left to sow 

 themselves, the forest would take care 

 of itself very well. But crows and squir- 

 rels and other animals levy a heavy toll. 

 Far more formidable, however, in well- 

 settled regions, are the gatherers of nuts 

 for the market. With chestnuts selling 

 at an average of $2.50 a bushel, there is 

 a premium on the seed crop which makes 

 propagation of the tree through this 

 means a matter of dubious chance. 

 When in addition the hogs are permitted 

 to range the woods for mast, and cattle 

 to browse the tender shoots as they rise 

 from the ground, the prospect of seed- 

 ling growth is small indeed. 



Chestnut is not exacting in its soil 

 requirements. Its roots spread com- 

 paratively deep, so that it is not so sen- 

 sitive to fire or humus destruction from 

 any cause as most species. Its sprouts 

 grow so fast that a height of 7 or 8 feet 

 at the end of the first season is not un- 

 common, and its stumps are so vigorous 

 that one will often produce 40 to 50 



