24 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



supply our demands we must by artificial means stimulate and 

 direct nature's forces in timber production. 



There are many thousands of acres of land in Massachusetts 

 that are absolutely waste. Much of this land is either unfit or 

 unnecessary for agricultural jjurposes. EveryAvhere we note 

 abandoned, brushy, wornout pastures, impoverished ploughland, 

 deforested tops of ridges, steep, rocky hillsides, poor, loose, sandy 

 soil, odd corners too expensive to plougli and cultivate ; yet many 

 of these waste lands could at small expense be made to jdeld val- 

 uable timber crops. Mr. Borst showed a series of view;s of such 

 deforested lands, burned over areas, etc., both from the surface 

 and sectional cuts. These pictures made clear what poor lands 

 white pine and other valuable trees can thrive on. In discus- 

 sing how many trees to plant, the size of plants to use, and the 

 spacing between the trees, it was shown how very dependent the 

 answer to these questions is on the nature of the land to be for- 

 ested. It was shown that upon areas where more or less volun- 

 tary tree growth exists the supplementary planting necessary to 

 fill the open places was very quickly and cheaply done, some- 

 times costing as low as four or five dollars per acre, using white 

 pine trees for this purpose. Where the entn-e area must be 

 planted the trees are set about five by five feet apart, requiring 

 1743 trees per acre, and may cost from seven to fifteen dollars 

 per acre. The size of plants needed determines much the cost of 

 the plantation. The size needed is very dependent upon soil 

 conditions and the nature of growth covering the land. Brushy, 

 blueberry, and sweet-fern lands require, for instance, the use of 

 three-year old ti-ansplanted stock, while open, exhausted pasture 

 lands can frequently be planted with two-year-old seedlings. 

 Where conditions permit the use of chestnuts, acorns, or hickory 

 nuts, the cost of planting per acre may be only two or three dol- 

 lars. Some 18,000 acres of waste land have already been artifi- 

 cially forested in this State. A few of such areas have recenth' 

 been lumbered at a net profit of over six per cent on the entire 

 investment. If the planting which was done forty, fifty, and 

 sixty years ago has proved profitable certainly the planting we 

 would do today, which would come into the market forty, fifty, 

 and sixty years hence must prove even more profitable ; especi- 



