3 6 4 



are needed on the farm. Incidentally it may be made a very at- 

 tractive feature of the farm and also serve for shelter. 



The increasing scarcity of timber for all purposes is making 

 ihe timber question a very important one. Timber is being re- 

 moved from the forest areas of the country to day about twice as 

 fast as the forests can renew it. This of course will lead to a 

 condition when growing timber will become a necessity. 



Already timber-growing on a commercial scale has been entered 

 upon in some parts of the country. It is doubtful if timber- 

 growing will ever be established as a great commercial enterprise 

 in North Dakota. At the same time the value of a wood lot on each 

 farm if properly grown, will in most cases more than compensate 

 for the time and money required to grow it. 



The work at this station has not been extended enough to an- 

 swer in a practical way all the questions that might be asked 

 concerning timber culture. We can only call attention to the ex- 

 periments we are making and to what we have seen in other 

 groves including the belts of native timber. 



Among the trees that will succeed well in groves are the 

 willow, white ash, green ash, American elm, rock elm, solf maple, 

 box elder, basswood, birch and white poplar. They are all native 

 trees but will not of course all succeed equally well in all parts 

 of the state. The green ash is found wherever trees will grow at 

 all and the elm is also widely distributed. The soft maple and 

 the basswood seem to require moist soils, such as are found along 

 river bottoms. 



It will be noticed that the cotton wood and balm of Gilead 

 both native trees and rapid growers have been left out of the list 

 of trees suited for groves. The balm of Gilead may possibly be 

 used to some extent but the cottonwood is not to be considered. 

 Planted singly it does well and is a useful tree but it demands 

 too much light and gives too little shade to make it a possible 

 forest tree. It is also a well known fact among tree growers that 

 other trees will not thrive in the vicinity of cottonwoods. 



DISTANCE APART FOE PLANTING. 



Trees suited for groves ordinarily do not make a good growth 

 when planted some distance apart unless they are of considerable 

 size when planted. A seedling elm or ash left to itself tends to 

 grow in the form of a bush and makes little progress in height. 

 For this reason seedling trees of the varieties named must be 

 planted close enough together to shade each other at the sides. 



