566 



FOREST CULTURE IN IOWA. 



The Scotch pine is in many localities found well adapted for outside 

 rows, from its hardy habit. It needs more room for growth than the 

 white pine. In planting wind-breaks, it was recommended that the 

 outside rows should be 9 feet apart, and plants 5 feet apart in the rows. 

 It was remarked that people generally are apt to overestimate the time 

 it will take to secure returns of fuel from artificial groves. Cottonwood 

 needs to be thinned the fourth or fifth year. If properly grown and 

 cultivated, the poles then cut out will average 2^ inches in diameter at 

 bottom, and 12 feet long. From a full stand, one-half, or 1,775 i)oles, 

 would be cut at this period from an acre. Green ash needs thinning at 

 six or seven years, and makes poles as large as those of the cottonwood 

 at four or five. Those who had tried it say that it pays better to raise 

 wood for fuel than to haul the supply needed five miles for ten years. 



As for wood grown for other uses than as fuel, it was estimated that 

 a crop of ash for hoop-poles, or larch for stakes, might be grown in from 

 seven to eleven years, and of oak and hickory in twelve to sixteen 

 years. Larch would grow to a size for posts in twelve to fifteen years, 

 and for telegraph-poles in eighteen to twenty years, on valley lands. 

 Walnut, hickory, elm, and other tie timber might be fit for use in from 

 fourteen to eighteen years. Cottonwood might be sawn at fifteen years 

 and white pine in thirty. 



Planted Timber-lands in loiva, as reported by the State Census in 18C3, 1865, 1867, 1869, and 

 1875, and Natural Timber in 1875. 



