136 Botanical Department. [Bulletin 108 



in growth of so very many of the trees, caused by lack of pruning in 

 earlier years, will prevent the forest from ever yielding in marketable 

 timber what should have been its normal output from the present 

 time forth. 



At the present date, twenty years since the conclusion of the last 

 planting at Farlington, a good yield of tie timber should be expected. 

 As a matter of fact, however, taking the plantation as a whole, no 

 timber of diameter sufficient for anything but posts can be hoped for 

 until several years after the thinning to 8x16 feet, planned by the 

 railroad company. The plantation, thickly planted as it is, and draw- 

 ing an immense amount of water from the soil, withstood the effects 

 of the last season's drought most remarkably, the leaves showing 

 scarcely any sign of wilting after a period of fourteen weeks in which 

 but 6.65 inches of rain fell. 



THE TINCHER FOREST. 



This plantation, owned by Mr. Geo. W. Tincher, of Topeka, Kan., 

 is located two and one-half miles west of Wilsey, Morris county, Kan- 

 sas, on high prairie upland. Nine acres were planted in the year 

 1899, with the rows running north and south, and the trees planted 

 5x7J feet. In 1900 a twenty-acre tract was planted, 5x14 feet, the 

 rows running east and west. Thirty-one acres were planted in 1885, 

 having the trees 4x4 feet. Mr. Tincher is taking out half of the 1885 

 planting, by removing every other row. The cost of this thinning to 

 him is fifty cents per 100 posts, the remaining trees to be trimmed up to 

 six or eight feet above the ground. In some places this section of 

 his plantation will produce 2000 posts per acre, while a small portion 

 will furnish none at all. Mr., Tincher considers the planting of trees 

 4x4 feet a serious mistake, and says: "My own place, with the first 

 planting of 1885 will not produce a single tie. The same can almost 

 be said for the Farlington forest, with their first planting, of 1878." 



While the trees of the Tincher plantation have made a slower 

 growth than they would have done on bottom land, the owner con- 

 siders that this is compensated for by the consequent greater hardness 

 of the wood and its longer life in service. The young trees on this 

 plantation are in vigorous and healthy condition, and give good 

 promise of success. In the older portion of the plantation, the 4x4 

 planting has certainly resulted in the formation of a fine forest floor, 

 but the trees there are otherwise suffering under the same disadvan- 

 tages as the Farlington forest. The trees in this plantation have 

 averaged from one-third to one-half inch annual increase in diameter. 



