1894.] l^'O [Rothroet. 



Other sites. The mountaia tops are its remaining strongholds. It is, 

 however, also found growing in the sands of the seashore. 



The hickories (shellbark and pignut) are trees of lower ground. The 

 former seldom leaves the alluvial flats, and though the latter is often found 

 on the higher grounds, it seldom reaches the mountain top. "Were it not for 

 the fact that Eastern North America is the only natural home of our most 

 valuahle hickories it would hardly be worth while, or fair, to place them 

 among our most important trees. In fact their approaching scarcity in 

 connection with their easy reproduction is their strongest claim to notice 

 here. As a rule all the species of hickory demand a good soil — even 

 though it may be on a hilly surface. 



Black walnut has been of importance. It is practically exhausted 

 now. During the season's travel I have seen almost none remaining 

 that was fully matured. 



The white walnut grows along streams even high up on the mountain 

 side, but the black walnut seldom is found in a thriving condition among 

 the rocks of the higlier, steeper slopes. This tree (black walnut) 

 appears to grow equally well on limestone soils and on alluvial flats. 

 Though it seems to be as averse to the Oneida and Medina sandstone 

 regions as tlie rock oak, chestnut and locust are partial to them. 



IV. Rates of Growth op Most Important Kinds of Timber. 



The rates of reproduction and of growth in this country are both a 

 surprise to a foreign forester. It is with the latter of these that we are 

 chiefly concerned, for the mere reproduction of seedlings is, as a rule, so 

 vastly in excess of what the ground can support that the question is nar- 

 rowed down to rate of growth of the surviving trees. 



It is fair to lay down the general propositions that growth in height of 

 our more important species is mainly a question of environment, and 

 that wood production attains its yearly maximum about the close of the 

 second third of the average life of the tree. 



The first of these important propositions bears probably less upon the 

 weight of the adult tree than it does on the character of the main trunk 

 and on the spreading of the more important branches ; in other words, 

 that the towering white pine, white oak, or tulip poplar which has grown 

 up in a dense forest has probably about the same quantity of wood in it 

 tiiat the more spreading specimens of the same species would have when 

 grown in more open ground. 



To illustrate the importance of the second proposition, that the maxi- 

 mum wood production is about the close of the second third of the tree's 

 life, let us for a moment consider the relative values of one-fourth of an 

 inch of new wood around a stem whose diameter is six inches and one 

 whose diameter is twenty-four inches, tlie proportion would be as eigh- 

 teen is to seventy-two, or to reduce it to a decimal, the annual wood pro- 

 duction of the siuiller stem would be but twenty-five per cent, of the 

 larger. 



