214 PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 
grown in northern localities. So far, all the trees used in manufacture of pulp, 
are of natural growth, no extensive artificial plantations having as yet been made, 
but undoubtedly forests of rapid growing trees, planted systematically and man- 
aged in a rational manner, will be good financial investments. 
It is by no means impossible, under these conditions, to attract great paper 
industries toward the points where suitable wood may be most profitably grown, 
and thus improve local conditions in the South. 
IMPROVEMENT OF SOIL CONDITIONS. 
To secure a satisfactory growth of annual farm crops, which always have 
surface feeding roots, a certain quantity of humus, or decayed vegetable mould is 
essential, and the greater the proportion of this material which ray be incorpo- 
rated in the soil, the more productive does the land become. The hummock lands 
of Florida, the Delta lands of Mississippi, and the alluvial tracts in Louisiana 
are productive because of the large proportion, sometimes amounting to the entire 
soil to great depth of humus in the composition. These are simply an accumula- 
tion of plant roots, decaying foliage and those annual growths which have be- 
come mingled with the sand, and are usually lower levels, the moisture preventing 
fires from destroying them. Any decaying vegetation will, in time, promote this 
condition. 
In the Northern States clover, rye, buckwheat and blue grass sod are plowed 
under to increase soil fertility. In the South, cow peas and various leguminous 
plants are grown for the same purpose. Wherever there are falling leaves from 
a forest, if not destroyed by burning, the same condition is maintained. Burning 
the annual growths removes all nitrogenous and carbonaceous matter, leaving 
cnly a modicum of potash. The mechanical mixture of leaf mould is not secured 
where fires are of frequent occurrence. 
It is most important, therefore, that fire protection be secured, if the soil is 
to be improved. 
Forests of deciduous trees rapidly improve soil fertility, far more so than 
do the pines. The creation of great forests of Catalpa, or other deciduous trees, 
would in a short time entirely change the upland sand areas into highly valuable 
farm lands which will be productive of revenue to the State as well as to the 
cwners of the land. 
The author does not advocate the preservation of these trees, but the forests 
should be perpetuated. We do not find fault with lumbermen who are furnish- 
ing the world with much needed boards and timbers for the commercial trade 
and the arts; we do deprecate the waste, however, and would urge a more ‘ra- 
tional system of forest perpetuation. 
We hold that our children should have some trees from which to make lum- 
ber and sell ties, telegraph poles and other very necessary articles. 
We visited one saw mill recently, which saws one thousand trees into lumber 
every twenty-four hours, cutting from these trees three hundred thousand feet of 
lumber daily—ninety million feet each year—and clearing twelve thousand acres 
of timber. Yet, this was but one mill of the many which are cutting up the pine 
trees at a rapid rate every day. 
