36 PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 



constantly removing the best surface soil, especially on rolling lands when loosened 

 by the plow. 



Such lands will be improved by a term of years in forest, being renewed 

 in fertility, after which they may again be converted into farm lands. On a 

 recent visit to your state I observed closely the condition of the Berkshire Hills. 

 The trees are scattering and I saw no timber such as we would term a forest. 

 There are no forest conditions, so far as I could ascertain. 



Profitable timber growth requires that the land be given up to the trees and 

 that there be enough trees on the ground to properly shade it. Yet the other ex- 

 treme should be avoided ; they should not be so close together as to rob each other 

 and prevent a steady, vigorous development. 



New England leads in the manufactures, the dense population requiring such 

 industries as shall give remunerative employment to the greatest number. 



These manufactories demand vast quantities of lumber, the box trade alone 

 being one of immense proportions. But the lumbermen are robbing their succes- 

 sors and the community when they manufacture box boards of poles and baby 

 trees which should grow a score of years yet. 



There will always be a demand for lumber to keep these thousands of me- 

 chanics employed. Your inferior dwarf growths will not supply this demand, 

 but you may grow trees in two decades which will furnish all the lumber 

 needed. 



In order to change the old natural inferior growths into new, more vigorous 

 and profitable forest, I would suggest cutting openings, probably four feet wide, 

 at intervals of twenty feet, more or less, destroying every tree in these openings, 

 unless it is a desirable tree to leave. 



On these lines may be planted nuts of walnut, hickory, chestnut or red oak, 

 the latter being the most rapidly maturing of the oaks. 



Or one-year trees may be set, of white ash, chestnut, catalpa and similar trees 

 of rapid growth. 



Or white pine, nursery grown, of three of four years from the seed. 



Two hundred trees, perhaps, per acre. The natural forest conditions already 

 provided with well-established nurse trees for protection of the young timber, gives 

 you great advantage over the w.estern prairies, favorable to forest growth. As 

 these trees become established and require greater room for their roots, more of 

 the nurse trees may be removed as found necessary. 



Growing pine from seed is a slow and wasteful process. Probably not 

 more than one seed in ten thousand, in nature, makes a tree, and not much better 

 result can be expected when seed is strewn through the woods. While seedlings, 

 well rooted, may be purchased at western nurseries at $8 per 1,000, thus costing 

 but $1.50 per acre. 



Catalpa trees are worth from one cent to three cents each, ash and many 

 other good trees costing half as much. 



There is no adage more true than that "The gods help those who help 

 themselves." 



It is very certain that nature will not improve New England forests without 

 the aid of you who occupy the land. 



