Profitable Tree Planting 



ihan this. A few years doubles the value of a plantation thus 

 coming on. 



About 1835 ^r. F. A. Cutter, of Pelham, New Hampshire, 

 took charge of a farm on which there was a forty-acre tract 

 seeded to white pine by a few old trees. He determined to care 

 for it properly. As need was, the trees were thinned, the weakest 

 removed to give room for the others to grow. A close forest 

 crown of foliage was maintained to prevent the trees from spread- 

 ing by side branches. Every year an acre was gone over and 

 the trees pruned of their branches as high as the hand axe 

 could reach. This prevented the formation of large knots, 

 and enhanced the value of the timber. A second pruning all 

 around, and continuous thinning kept the tract in good health 

 and growth. 



That tract has recently yielded a harvest which averages 

 25,000 feet, B. M., per acre. The father sowed and his son 

 reaped 1,000,000 feet of prime white-pine lumber from forty 

 acres! This is five times the average yield in the Michigan 

 pineries. !t proves that husbandry in a crop of trees is rewarded 

 as certainly as in a crop of corn. 



Another lot on the same farm has a stand of white pine on 

 it about sixty years old that experts estimate will cut 200,000 

 feet of lumber. The average log measures over sixty feet. 



In the Massachusetts town of Tyngsborough is a plot of 

 fifty-three acres that was a rye field within the memory of men 

 now living. It grew up to young white pine, and was bought 

 for $400. The timber is not yet of marketable age, though by 

 selection the owner has taken out over 600,000 feet of lumber 

 during his life. His estate was recently appraised, and the stand 

 of pine estimated at 100,000 feet. As white pine is becoming 

 scarcer and the demand for it urgent, the price has risen 

 steadily. 



Hon. J. D. Lyman, of Exeter, New Hampshire, gives the 

 reasons for his success with white pine. He gathers cones in 

 early September, spreads them in a dry, airy room, and when 

 they open beats out the seeds. This is about a fortnight after 

 they are gathered. He prefers to sow the seed at once in beds. 

 For three years the young seedlings are cultivated, lath screens 

 protecting them from the hot sun. Then they are ready to set 

 out. If they are to grow unpruned and be cut at forty years 



477 



