THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 137 



Will our readers have the kindness to reply to Mr. Claypole's 

 iiKjuiry. We liave never seen any land infested with this carrot, nor 

 have wo before lieard any complaint. 



EXPERIMENTS IN THE GROWING OF TIMBER TREES. 



It seems to he the fortune of some men to live in advance of their 

 times. They look out into the future and see events approaching for 

 which they would themselves prepare, and strive to impress upon 

 others the importance of making provision beforehand to meet the 

 coming need. But their words seem to their contemporaries as idle 

 tales, and they fall unheeded as an autumn leaf. Among these men 

 may be ranked Prof. J. Beal, of the Michigan Agricultural College, who 

 has planted on the college grounds a small arboretum of something 

 over two acres, for the purpose of experimenting upon the growth of 

 timber trees, that he may ascertain the time required by each variety 

 to attain such size as will make it valuable for economic uses. Doubt- 

 less this will seem to many a useless expenditure of his time and of 

 the people's money. Michigan still abounds in forests, and the question 

 of future supply is scarcely even thought of, even by those most 

 interested in such supply. But Prof. Beal with a wise forethought 

 has begun a series of experiments, the value of which wiU be appreciated 

 in coming years, and whatever men may now say, future generations 

 wiU honor his wisdom, and gratefully admit that these investigations 

 were not begun at all too soon. 



The arboretum of the Michigan Agricultural College contains about 

 two hundred and seventy-five species of trees and shrubs, all of which 

 are properly labeled and recorded in a book of the plat. The soil is a 

 sandy loam, naturally well drained. A portion of the surface soil had 

 been taken off in grading an old road which at one time ran across the 

 arboretum, and the trees growing on this part exhibit a marked 

 inferiority, showing that even forest trees are sensitive to bad treatment. 

 Prof. Beal gives as an illustration of this, that some Butternuts which 

 had grown for three years on this denuded strip averaged only twenty, 

 two inches in height ami an inch and five-eighths in circumference- 

 while those on each side of them, growing in good soil, averaged about 

 five and a half feet in height and four inches in circumference. 



