50 PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS UPON TREE-PLANTING. 



est way to raise a grovo is with cuttings of cotton wood or willow. I plow, drag, and 

 mark the same as for corn, four feet each way, which will contain 2,722 hills to the 

 acre. I should plant one-half to trees, four feet one way and eight the other, making 

 1,301 trees, and the other in corn for two years, to pay for cultivation, and that is all 

 the cultivation needed. I should adopt the same plan in planting acorns, hickory- 

 nuts, white and black walnuts, soft maple, elm, and ash, where the sprouts are one 

 year old. White pine, arborvitai, red cedar, European :ind American larch, when 

 large enough to transplant, require more cultivation. I estimate the cost of preparing 

 an acre and getting the cuttings of soft maple or ash (they can be had by the thousand 

 along our streams) at ^3 per acre. A man can plant two and a half acres per day. 

 This is all the cost for ten years, except interest and taxes on land. I have 1,361 trees 

 per acre ; seven years from planting I will cut one-fourth, or 340 trees, equal to 15 

 cords of wood ; the eighth year 15 cords more ; the ninth the same ; the tenth year you 

 see my profits. I should cut what is left, 456 trees. Allow four trees to the cord, so 

 as not to overestimate it. I have several trees only ten years old, which are 14 incnes 

 in diameter and 50 feet high ; four, I think, would make a cord. Allowing six trees to 

 the cord, we have 76 cords, and with 45 cords cut before, 121 cords. At $3 per cord 

 allowing $1 for cutting, I have 6242. I contend that five acres planted to cottonwood 

 after a growth of seven years, will furnish one family with fuel for one stove a life-time 

 and sell enough to pay for the use of the land besides. I claim, after fifteen years 

 experience in tree-planting on this plan, which I adopted last spring on Arbor Day. on 

 ray new farm in Otoe County, Nebraska, that the white willow {Salix alba) is equal to 

 soft maple for wind-breaks and fuel, and superior to all trees for rapidity of growth, 

 as well as good for timber. Chestnut, too, is super-oxcellent. The climatic influence 

 of timber is discernible in the regular attraction of rain and tempering the chilly winds 

 of winter. 



PLANTING IN NEBRASKA. 



[From an article by James Morris, in the Fourth Report of the State Board of AgTicultnre, p. 454-1 



* * * What shall we plant in Nebraska that will most quickly and fully meet our 

 requirements f Shelter and shade are our immediate and impejrative necessity. To 

 provide these we unhesitatingly recommend, first of all, our native trees, in the follow- 

 ing order: Soft maple, willow, cottonwood, buckeye, ash. The maple is raised from 

 seed as easily as corn ; makes a good shelter when thickly planted in rows, and a 

 grateful shade where room is given to its lateral branches. It furnishes a fuel which, 

 though it does not consume as slowly as oak and hickory, makes a quick, hot fire. 

 The willow, objected to by many as a harbor for insects, yet offers a. complete break to 

 the keen winds, grows rapidly to a good size, and some varieties, as the white and the 

 weeping willow, furnish good timber for fuel and manufacturing purposes. The 

 common osier, planted upon wet Spots, will pay as well as any other crop on the farm. 

 Cuttings of all varieties are easily nnd cheaply secured. » * » 



As a soui'ce of profit the raising of trees in Nebraska ranks next to the raising of 

 stock. A quarter-section planted with chestnut, spruce, larch, maple, mammoth aspen, 

 or even inferior trees, would, in ten years, yield a satisfactory return lor the investment. 



CLOSE PLANTING OF COTTONWOOD. 



Judge Whiting, of Monona County, Iowa, remarked in 1869, that he had 

 at first planted cottonwood eight feet apart each way, giving each tree 

 64 square feet of ground. They grew well, but too many branches in 

 proportion to the amount of body wood. He had adopted the rule of 

 planting three feet each way, giving nine square feet to a tree, and in 

 this order they grew tall and straight, soon shaded the ground, and in 

 three years needed no further cultivation than thinning as became ne- 

 cessary, by removing alternate rows and drawing out the poles with one 

 horse and a chain. 



THE PLANTING OF TREES ALONG HIGHWAYS. 



In affirming that avenues of trees along highways add greatly to the 

 ornament of a country, and contribute to the enjoyment of those travel- 

 ing, it does not necessarily follow that they should be planted every- 

 where. Their known effect in reducing evaporation from the soil that 

 they shade, doubtless tends to hinder roads from drying so rapidly after 

 rains as they would in an open country ; but damp roads are not dusty, 



