FOREST CULTURE IN ILLINOIS. 507 



The English -waluut {J. regia) is valuable for ita fruit T/hero it will endure the cli- 

 mate, -which is not in Northern Illinois. 



Of the hickories, the kinds most valuable for timber are the shellbark {Carya alha) 

 and pignut (C. porcina). The latter affords the longest wood of all the hickories, 

 though their characteristics are very much alike. 



The sugar-maple {Acer saccharinmn) and black maple (A. nigra) are valued for the 

 production of sugar and for fuel. The seeds ripen in autumn, and should be treated 

 as those of the ash. The young trees grow slowly at first, and should remain in the 

 seed-bed two or three years. The silver maple {A. dasycarpum) and red maple {A. 

 ruhrum) ripen their seeds late in May, and must be gathered and sown immediately. 

 The wood of these and the box-elder (Ncgiuulo aceroides) is not of the best, but their 

 rapid growth renders them desirable to plant where speedy result is wanted. 



For the management of young plantations of timber only general rules can be given, 

 and the exercise of judgment and common sense on the part of the cultivator is neces- 

 sary. Thinning should be done in time to prevent the growth of trees from being 

 checked by crowding, and the poorest trees should be first removed. No tree should 

 be allowed to fork. All dead and sickly branches should be cut out, and after the 

 trees are 10 to 12 feet high they should be kept clear of the branches for from one- 

 half to two-thirds of their height. With proper care nearly every tree in a well-grown 

 plantation will ba of value for timber. 



Stock of every description should be excluded from plantations of trees. "Wood- 

 lands of natural growth, intended to be permanent, should likewise not be pastured. 

 They will continually reproduce themselves, if young trees are allowed to gi'ow, but 

 any forest will be in time destroyed by a persistent course of pasturage. Many land- 

 holders in Kentucky formerly adopted the practice of cutting the least valuable trees 

 from their woodlands, sowing blue-grass and pasturing them. "Very fine parks were 

 produced ; but for twenty years past the old trees have been fast dying out, and no 

 young ones exist to take their places. 



Experiments of B. G. Scofleld in Treeplaniing, at Elgin, III} 



This plantation was begun in 1858, with imported and American seed- 

 lings and seeds ; and is on a rich, dry, undulating prairie, with black loam 

 passing into clay at a depth of 4 to G feet, where it is underlaid by coarse 

 gravel. It consisted, at first, of about 12,000 trees ; 8,000 set from 1858 

 to 1862, and 4,000 in 1866. The plants were usually from 8 to 12 inches 

 long, were transplanted in nursery-rows, and in two years to their per- 

 manent places. The ground had been cultivated three years from prai- 

 rie sod, and was well pulverized. The planting was done in furrows of 

 proper depth, level places of proper depth being prepared by the spade, 

 and care being taken to prevent drying of the roots. The larch (form- 

 ing the greater part) were 2 to 4 feet high when transplanted, and the 

 evergreens 1^ to 3 feet. Having been transplanted once or twice in the 

 nursery, they were well stocked with roots. They were cultivated three 

 to six years, and beans planted in the wider spaces; and from this time, 

 excepting the black walnuts and elms, they protected themselves. 

 These and the white ash needed longer cuLivatiou on account of later 

 leaving. 



The varieties planted were the Scotch, black Austrian, and white 

 pines, Norway and white spruces, American and Siberian arbor-vitse 

 hemlock, and European and American silver fir ; and of deciduous trees 

 the black walnut, silver-leaf, sugar, and red maples, box-elder, English 

 red, andwhite American elms, chestnut, horse-chestnut, European mount 

 ain-ash, white ash, redbud (of Southern Illinois), European and Amer 

 lean larch, and cypress. 



European larch.— This is now 28 to 32 feet high, with diameters varying according to 

 density, the most being 14 inches at 1 foot from the ground. Nearly every tree grew ; 

 average annual growth the first nine years, 2i feet. On the 19th of October, 1869, a 

 severti frost, coming before the tops ha* hardened, checked them, and the gain was not 

 over 2 inches a year, or a foot in six seasons, till 1B76, when they grew 18 inches. No 

 bird or insect has attacked them. 



' Communicated to the Horticultural Society of Northern Illinois, and published with 

 the Tranaac. of III. Hort. Soc, 187G, p. 284. 



