126 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



March 



nine. Or else walks are taken to High 

 Point, in New Jersey on the Kittatinny 

 Ridge, to Raymondskill Falls, to the 

 cliffs overlooking the pretty Delaware 

 and to other points of interest, or the 

 afternoon is spent in fishing in the 

 lakes back in the country. 



The association of the camp life in 

 itself is a great education, for here are 

 gathered together for one purpose 

 graduates from numerous universities 

 and other educational institutions, in- 

 cluding Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Co- 

 lumbia, Cornell, University of Penn- 

 sylvania, Bowdoin, Rutgers, Norwich, 

 Maine, Tufts, Wisconsin, Beloit, Bilt- 

 more, California, Massachusetts Agri- 

 cultural College, DePauw University, 

 Ohio Wesleyan, Ohio State, Toronto, 

 Regna Nielsens (Norway), Katwijk 



(Holland), and the University of the 

 Cape of Good Hope.. Here are brought 

 together men from Maine to Califor- 

 nia, from Canada, England, Norway, 

 South Africa and Hawaii. All of 

 them have their own peculiar college 

 ideas and customs deeply rooted, but 

 these are subordinated for the new af- 

 filiation to a great university and it is 

 surprising how quickly the spirit of 

 adoption takes hold. It warms the 

 heart of the "son of old Eli" to hear 

 the foresters give, already in a familiar 

 way, the snappy Yale cheer and sing 

 their song: 



Love to Alma Mater plighted 

 From where'er we hail 

 To that love is now united 

 Loyaltv to Yale. 



FOREST INTERESTS OF RHODE 



ISLAND 



Much Land Can Be Made Productive Through Proper 

 Care of Natural Timber Growth and by Planting 



BY 



J. B. MOWRY 



A CCORDING to the United States 

 ** Soils Survey of Rhode Island of 

 1905, about two-fifths of the total area 

 of the state, or 268,248 acres, consist 

 <>f unimproved and abandoned farms. 

 Much of this. land was always unsuit- 

 able for agriculture and has now re- 

 verted to forest. Within the last half 

 century the shifting of the grain and 

 meat producing industries westward 

 has greatly lessened the requirements 

 of tillage and pasture lands in the 

 state, but it is none the less important 

 that the ever-increasing area of un- 

 improved land should be put to the 

 best possible use. 



While doubtless some of this land is 

 so ledgy and poor that it should be al- 

 lowed to produce what growth it can 

 naturally, there is also much land 



where forest planting would prove 

 very remunerative. Natural afforesta- 

 tion is a slow and often unsatisfactory 

 process, and twenty years or more 

 sometimes elapse before the land is 

 fully covered with trees, many of these 

 perhaps of the less valuable species. 

 This delay, during which the land is 

 producing little or no interest on the 

 capital, is avoided by planting. Man} 

 instances could be cited of pasture land 

 which, planted to pine and hardwoods 

 at a very small outlay in time and 

 money, has produced four or five times 

 as much valuable timber per acre in 

 forty years as would have grown by 

 natural afforestation. While such a 

 long investment tends to discourage 

 the planter, he should not forget that 

 land so planted to forest is yearly in- 



