PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS UPON TREE-PLANTING. 63 



Credit. — By taking out 3,000 plants after two years' growth, to set in 

 other ground, at 820 per thousand, $60. It is calculated that 1,000 in 

 8,000 will die, although those who are accustomed to handling and cul- 

 tivating will not lose so many. Then half the plants are taken out, 

 leaving them 2 by 4J feet. When they are eight years old they will be 

 poles fit for fence, two or three inches through and fifteen or twenty feet 

 high, and another thinning out must be done, by taking out 2,000, leav- 

 ing the grove 4 by 4^ feet. These poles are worth 5 cents each, 8100. 

 At eight years one acre has cost 8140, and has a credit of $160. Those 

 transplanted at two years from setting should be set 4 by 4J, covering 

 about an acre and a half, and will cost, in setting out and cultivating 

 two years, something over $100, including the plants at 860. 



MODE OF PLANTING OAKS RECOMMENDED BY THE SOCIETY FOR THE 

 PROMOTION OF AGRICULTURE, ARTS, AND MANUFACTURES. 



To this society, formed in Few York as a State institution in 1791, 

 may undoubtedly be ascribed the first direct recommendation of a so- 

 ciety for the planting of forests for their timber in the United States. 



In a circular issued at the beginning, they made particular inquiries 

 concerning the propagation of the locust-tree, the possibility of intro- 

 ducing the white mulberry, and the profit and propriety of raising in 

 nurseries and transplanting hickory, chestnut, beech, ash, and other 

 trees for fencing and fuel, and the planting of hedges. 



About 1795, a committee appointed to consider the best mode of pre- 

 serving and increasing the growth of wood and valuable timber, reported 

 in favor of recommending this where the soil was not better adapted to 

 other uses. One of the committee, twenty years before, had allowed 

 land worth $2.50 per acre to grow up to timber, then worth $12 per 

 acre, besides the land, which had been improved in the mean time. 

 They insisted upon the importance of fencing out cattle; suggested the 

 propriety of cutting olf old woodlands entirely, so as to give the young 

 trees an equal start ; showed that woods should not be thinned too 

 much, as this would favor the growth of grass, to the injury of the trees ; 

 and pointed out a method of planting oaks that deserves notice : 



Oaks are best propagated by leaving the acorns on the surface of the ground, cov- 

 ered with the grass ; but in this way the acorns are exposed to be devoured by ani- 

 mals. To prevent this it is recommended to preserve them through the winter and 

 plant them in the following manner : First make a bed of loam about six inches deep ; 

 on this plant the acorns about two inches deep ; over them lay another bed of six inches 

 of earth, over that another layer of acorns, and so on, as far as the occasion requires. 

 The whole must be covered with earth, to preserve them from the frost. Early in the 

 spring the bed is to be opened, when the acorns, which will- have begun to shoot, are 

 to be planted about a foot's distance from each other. 



Another method of planting them, is to dig a small hole with a pick-ax, and drdp 

 the acorn, covering it with earth. This is a very simple method, but care must be 

 taken not to bury the seed too deep ; two inches is found to be the best depth ; the 

 less covering the better, provided the acorn is secured from birds and other animals. 

 Another practice is to pare the earth with a plow and plant the acorns in rows, covering 

 them with the turf. This is not a great deal of labor, and will secure the acorns from 

 animals. The distance of the rows may be at any man's pleasure, but the thicker the 

 trees the sooner will the ground be shaded and the turf destroyed. As the young 

 trees advance the weaker ones will die, and the vigorous and thrifty ones only sur- 

 vive. » * • 



It is probable that great numbers of old fields might, in this way (the cultivation 

 of trees), be converted into very profitable lands. It is a circumstance that deserves 

 particular notice that vegetation is ordained to be the natural fertilizer of the earth, 

 and it is a happy arrangement in the economy of nature, that the most useful vege- 

 table productions furnish this fertility iu the greatest abundance. Grass contributes 

 to enrich land much more than weeds'; and useful forest-trees, by the leaves they de- 



