PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 125 
of a forest, the trees are one sided and bent away from the object which cuts 
off the light. 
The walnut is particularly subject to this law. One nut planted in the 
midst of a quarter-acre field will in time extend its branches to cover the entire 
field, but its trunk will be very short. Yet fifty trees grown upon the same 
area will form tall trunks giving high value to the lumber. 
However, if 680 trees be planted on this same quarter-acre tract (the 
4x4 feet system), none will make trees, but spindling shafts starved and stunted 
forever. 
There are certain trees which have the habit of pushing forward their 
terminal shoot with great vigor, the side branches also making upright 
growth, such as the Lombardy poplar; but these are few. 
In order that profitable timber be secured, and the greatest increase in a 
given period, there should be approximately two hundred trees upon each 
acre of land. 
We seldom appreciate any possession during its abundance, nor until it 
has disappeared is its want felt. 
One of America’s most abundant forest trees, the walnut, as a commer- 
cial timber, is practically exhausted. Can it again be restored? Will the 
National and State Governments render substantial assistance? And_ will 
individual land owners begin its restoration, and, further, will it pay? These 
are some of the questions which we propose to discuss. 
DISTRIBUTION OF FORESTS. 
The Creator in His wisdom has devised various methods and adopted 
many agencies for the distribution of forest trees. 
The wind carries those seeds which are light and downy many miles from 
the parent tree, and those of lesser weight but which are winged, to lesser distances. 
Streams of water bear others which will float, depositing them in the 
soft mud along their shores. 
Others are surrounded with edible pulp or pleasant juice, which is relished 
by birds, and such fruits are devoured by these feathered planters of forests, the 
seeds growing into forests often very far distant. 
Wild animals, and especially the smaller quadrupeds, gather acorns, nuts 
and edible fruits, store them for time of need, and dropping some by the way 
or leaving others in their store-houses, become, unintentionally, the builders 
of forests. 
Man has seldom been charged with forest planting in America, yet the 
Aborigines were the principal distributers of the walnut and other nut trees 
from which a goodly portion of their food was obtained. 
As the American Indians had no fixed homes, but wandered at will up 
and down the great rivers from the St. Lawrence and the Northern Lakes 
to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Hudson River westward to the Missouri 
and bevond, camping along the streams, visiting with tribes with whom they 
were friendly, and warring with others to whom they had enmity, they car- 
ried the nuts from place to place, some of which were dropped and became 
trees. 
