30 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



had sunlight on one side, and grew one-sided. In addition, 

 it had another misfortune. It was whipped on the head by 

 a limb from another tree. We have a great deal of trouble 

 with the little gray birch. It whips the tops of my pines. I 

 can show you a pine that stands at least twenty feet from a 

 gray birch, and the birch has bent over and whipped it so tlie 

 tree, after it gets up to twelve or twenty feet, grows branch- 

 ing and on one side. By the way, the little wild cherry is 

 one of the Avorst trees to whip the young pines. If your 

 pines are scattered in cleared land they will be worthless. 

 I have had pines eighteen inches in diameter whose live 

 limbs lay on the ground. They rose like a pyramid. If 

 pines stand too thick, they Avill be almost worthless. If 

 they are too scattered, they will be almost worthless. In- 

 deed, scattered pines are nearly Avorthless even for wood, 

 because you cannot easily fit their bodies into fuel. The 

 limbs, of course, make pretty good wood. By the way, the 

 pine, as well as other trees, is a good record keeper of the 

 weather. In better years it makes greater growth. The 

 quality of the years depends on the amount of warmth and 

 moisture. Sometimes the winter will freeze the trees so 

 hard that they will not grow as well the next year. Go into 

 the White Mountain region of New Hampshire and cut down 

 the old spruces and count back the annual rings to 1816, 

 when there was a frost every month in the year, and nearly 

 every night. The trees made very little growth that year, 

 and very much more growth other years. 



The pine blossoms early in the spring. When I was a 

 boy I used to see the pollen from the staminate flowers on 

 the puddles, and supposed it was sulphur. The year the 

 tree blossoms the cone grows three-fourths of an inch in 

 length, and a little smaller than the end of my little finger. 

 It starts very slowly indeed. The next year it grows very 

 rapidly, and l)y the first of September you should gather 

 your seed. The cones must be gathered before the scales 

 open, because the seed will drop out almost immediately. 

 It drops out more rapidly than chestnuts or wahuits atter 

 their burrs or shells open. Gather the cones early, and 

 place them in a dry, cool place, spread thin, and in ten days 

 the cones will open and you can beat the seeds out, I would 



