PROFITS FROM FARM WOODS 13 
The value of pine straw for growth.of trees is shown by a study 
made in Maryland.*’ A farmer living in eastern Maryland, for years 
has raked the straw from a certain part of his loblolly (old-field) 
pine woods. A careful measurement of the growth of the trees on 
the raked land and of the trees on an adjacent unraked part of the 
stand showed that the trees where the straw had not been raked had 
grown 6,200 board feet more of saw timber. This additional growth 
was worth $62. Thus the straw on the ground had added over $1 
per acre per year in 
value to his income. 
However, it would 
have yielded him 
more if it had been 
raked and sold for 
truck crops. On 
sandy land the loss 
of the woods leaves 
is not detrimental to 
tree growth as it is 
on clay souls. 
FARMER WATCHES 
SAPLINGS GROW 
AND REFUSES 
$300 AN ACRE 
As a boy, Peyton 
Williams, of Collins, 
Tattnall County, Ga., 
noticed on the farm 
an abandoned cotton 
field covered with 
httle longleaf pines. 
Others regarded 
them as mere bushes, 
but he kept fires out 
and let the trees 
have a chance to 
grow. As a man 
past middle life he 
looked with keen 
pride upon his farm- FigukH 8.—A valuable crop of longleaf pines in Tattnall 
timber crop as a County, Ga., grown on an old field during the life of 
e owner 
bank account and 
better than a life insurance. Repeatedly he refused to sell his stand 
of tall straight longleaf pine trees for which timber buyers offered 
him what neighbors « considered fabulous prices. The trees had grown 
close, together, resulting in very straight trunks with little taper— 
just the kind in demand for piling at Savannah, the nearest port, and 
all along the seacoast as far as New York. Also for railroad con- 
struction such trees were sought far and near. 
1Copn, J. A. LOBLOLLY PINE IN MARYLAND. ‘“‘A HANDBOOK FOR GROWERS AND USERS.” 
96 p:, illus. Baltimore. 1923. 
