284 WOOD AND FOREST. 



Planting has been made possible in the far west by extensive irri- 

 gation systems, and farther east by the lessening of prairie fires, 

 which once set the limit to tree growth in the prairie states. In many 

 parts of Illinois, southern Wisconsin and other prairie States, there 

 is much more forest land than there was twenty-five years ago. 



What planting can do, may be seen on some worn out pastures in 

 New England, Fig. 127. With the western movement of agriculture, 

 the abandoned farms of New England are to some extent becoming 

 re-forested, both naturally and by planting, as with white pine, which 

 grows even on sandy soil. Between 1820 and 1880, there was a 

 period of enthusiastic white-pine planting in New England, and tho 

 the interest died on account of the cheap transportation of western 

 lumber, those early plantations prove that white pine can be planted 

 at a profit even on sand barrens. Once worn out and useless pas- 

 tures are now worth $150 an acre and produce yearly a net income 

 of $3 or more an acre. 



IMPROVEMENT. 



Besides utilization and preservation, the third main object of for- 

 estry is the improvement of the forest. It is not an uncommon mis- 

 take to suppose that the virgin forest is the best forest for human 

 purposes. It is a comparatively new idea, especially in America, 

 that a forest can be improved ; that is, that better trees can be raised 

 than those which grow naturally. Lumbermen commonly say, "You 

 never can raise a second growth of white pine as good as the first 

 growth." As if this "first growth" were not itself the successsor of 

 thousands of other generations ! There is even a legend that white 

 pine will not grow in its old habitat. Says Bruncken, 



Many people probably imagine that a primeval wood, "by nature's 

 own hand planted," cannot be surpassed in the number and size of its trees, 

 and consequently in the amount of wood to be derived from it. But the 

 very opposite is true. No wild forest can ever equal a cultivated one in 

 productiveness. To hope that it will, is very much as if a farmer were to 

 expect a full harvest from the grain that may spring up spontaneously in 

 his fields without his sowing. A tract of wild forest in the first place does 

 not contain so many trees as might grow thereon, but only so many as may 

 have survived the struggle for life with their own and other species ol 

 plants occupying the locality. Many of the trees so surviving never attain 

 their best development, being suppressed, overshadowed, and hindered by 

 stronger neighbors. Finally much of the space that might be occupied by 

 valuable timber may be given up to trees having little or no market value. 



