466 Transactions of the American Institute. 



The Sugar Maple. 



Mr, Louis Jackson, of Rockford, Illinois, desires information as to 

 the proper time to plant the seed, and how it should be treated; in 

 short, all about it. 



Mr. A. S. Fuller, (Author of " The Forest Tree Culturist '•).— I 

 have raised a good many hundred thousand sugar maples. The pro- 

 cess is simple. Take the seed in October ; mix with moist sand ; 

 bury the box containing this mixture, and next spring sow in drills 

 two and a half feet apart — placing seeds about two inches distant. 

 Keep the rows clean and remove to the nursery in the fall or the 

 following spring, cutting of tap-root. 



CoxcERNiXG Cotton Wood. 



Mr. J. F. Siraonds, of Iowa Falls, Iowa, made inquiry about this 

 tree, when to set the cuttings, &c. 



Mr. A. S. Fuller. — Set the cuttings in spring. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — What does he want to grow cotton-wood 

 for ? There are enough better sorts. Locust, for instance, grows 

 with equal rapidity, and it grows tall, too, and quick. Why in 

 Indiana I planted some locust seed, and the trees are verylarge now 

 and I hope \o\\ don't call me old. 



The White Willow. 

 The correspondent last named forwards the following : Some of 

 your western readers who have seen miles of white willow hedges 

 which will turn any kind of stock, from a rabbit to an elephant, 

 are sometimes amused by the debates in your Club upon the willow, 

 for hedging, and the wise predictions or unfounded statements of 

 its failure. ' The truth is, that any one who will set a row of white 

 willow cuttings and cultivate for three years with the same judgement 

 and care and skill which he would give to a row of corn, can have 

 a fence the fourth or fifth year which will turn any stock ever kept 

 upon a farm. I ha\'~e no^cutting8 to sell. 



Saw-Dcst as a Fertilizer, 

 Mr. Simon K. Dow, of Concord, N. 11., wrote to say that he has 

 ■Si pond in which saw-dust (from a mill above) has been accumulating 

 for the past twenty years, and now it is of the depth of three or 

 four feet. The pond is usually dry during the summer months, 

 .and he has bethought liim that possibly this deposit, used as a 

 •mamire, would benefit a hard soil, formed principally from the 



