FOREST ARBORETA 261 



"Plant trees," he says — "Why I can't wait that long for my 

 returns! Tree planting is all very well for states and govern; 

 ments but I am merely a man with a little span of life ahead of 

 me. When I invest I must at least live long enough to harvest 

 the crop." 



You see that such men are apt to think not in terms of white 

 pine, which, as you are aware, will yield box boards in something 

 less than 30 years, or in terms of the quick-growing hardwoods 

 which yield fence posts in eight or ten years and firwood in maybe 

 ten more, and lumber in perhaps 30 or 40 years. Most men are 

 apt to think of the results of tree planting in terms of long lived, 

 slow growing oaks, which take perhaps a century to grow 1 2 inches 

 through. To make the fact plain to such men, not only about 

 money returns from tree planting but about how soon these returns 

 can be had, is an urgent task before all foresters. 



Now the next task. That is to get tree planting done so well 

 that disappointment will not be the crop instead of posts or lumber 

 or firewood. Successful tree planting is a wholly practicable thing. 

 The Germans have demonstrated that fact for well over two 

 centuries; and of course being foresters, you are well aware of 

 the fact that today one-third of the reproduction in German 

 forests is from planted trees. 



But we do not need to go to Germany. Go to Baltimore, 

 North Carolina, to the estate of George W. Vanderbilt. You 

 will see forest plantations there, growing on steep hills which 20 

 years ago were bare and red and gullied by erosion and which 

 today are already yielding useful products. If you do not care 

 to go so far, why then travel in your own state here at home, 

 and see the admirable results already obtained by planting good 

 forest stock from the splendid state nurseries. 



Successful tree planting is a practical thing; so is successful 

 farming; but there are farmers who fail. Now what is needed 

 in order to insure as low a precentage of failure as possible among 

 ttee planters? My impression is that object lessons are needed 

 more than anywhere else. One can not learn how to be a forester 

 from books alone. I will affirm with equal vigor that one can not 

 learn how to be a banker from books; and possibly we will agree 

 that men can not learn how to do good tree-planting wholly from 

 books. They need to see the thing in operation. Of course the 

 obvious answer is, as I have just stated, that successful planta- 



