104 



Massachusetts farmer. The planting of the white ash as a shade and road-side tree is 

 especially recommended, and for that purpose it ranks, among our native trees, next to 

 the sugar-maple." 



calcul^lTions of cost of gkowing pine timber. 



" Mr. Sonson, a highly intelligent Norwegian gentleman, who has made a large for- 

 tune in the timber trade, informed me some time ago that, according to a calculation 

 which he had made, pine and spruce timber actually costs and is worth much more than 

 the price at which it is sold. His theory is, that an acre of grown timber is worth the 

 sum that the lowest or nominal price of wild land — -say $1 an acre — would amount to as 

 an invested capital, drawing interest at the expiration of the period required for timber 

 to develop. In the report on Swedish forest culture, it was shown that in the northerly 

 parts of Sweden, two hundred ye^s, — and on poorer soils three hundred years, are 

 required for the pine to grow to good timber. In the south part of the country one hun- 

 dred years are sufficient. It may be assumed that one hundred and eighty years are 

 required for the growth of pine timber in the north-west part of the United States. 

 Now, $1 invested at 5 per cent, interest per annum, wUl double say, in twenty years. 

 In forty years it will be $4 ; in sixty years, $8 ; in eighty years, $16 ; in one hundred 

 years, |32 ; in one hundred and twenty years, $64 ; in one hundred and forty years, 

 $128 and in one hundred and sixty years, $256. If a thing is worth what, under favour- 

 able circumstances, it costs to produce it, then this last mentioned sum of $256 repre- 

 sents the value of an acre of land originally bought at $1, at the time pine timber 

 will have come to maturity upon it, and this without including the charges of taxes on 

 the land. These figures would seem to show that the pine forests of the United States 

 are being or have been sold and consumed at a price very much below their actual value. 



" In years past vast quantities of pine timber in the north-west part of the United 

 States have been stolen from the Government, and at the very time the latter was em- 

 ploying agents to guard it. In very many instances, after the timber has been stolen, 

 innocent parties, supposing from the official maps that the land was timbered land, have 

 purchased it from the United States at private entry, at $1.25 per acre. Interest on the 

 purchase money, and taxes have in the course of twenty years, made such lands cost the 

 owners from $3 to $4 per acre, and yet the land would not bring fifty cents per acre. 

 Many a man has been kept poor paying taxes on such lands. Again timber-lands have 

 been sold off in such large quantities and so rapidly as to glut the timber market. 



" But a more important fact still is that no means have been taken to promote re- 

 growth. Where hardwood timber is cut there is always a chance for regrowth by 

 sprouts from the stumps and roots, but with pine and spruce it is otherwise ; and where 

 closely growing forests of pine and spruce are cleared without leaving seed-trees, the 

 land may remain for ever a waste, growing every year more barren. 



" In the report above referred to, it was shown that the practice in Sweden when 

 cutting pine timber is to leave six or seven seed-trees to about each quarter of an acre. 

 After five or six years the seed trees may be cut." 



Profitable Method op Cutting. 



A suggestion of management in some degree comparable with European methods 

 was made by Peter Guillet, in a work on timber-measurement published in 1823. He 



says : — 



" Individuals wishing to make the most of their woodlands will find it very profit- 

 able to cut their timber by sections, sparing to every acre ten or twelve of the most pro- 

 mising size white oaks or pines, whichsoever the soil will produce best ; range the order 

 of their land so as to cut a section every year. For example, say a man has 200 acres of 

 woodland divided into sections of ten acres each, then, by cutting one section every year, 

 he would have young timber twenty years old which makes excellent firewood, and I 



