FOREST PLANTATIONS AT BILTMORE, N. C. 13 



The two Oregon species died within three years. After eight 

 years the pines averaged 15 or 20 feet in height and about twice the 

 height of the sugar maples. At 15 years of age the pines were 10 

 feet taller and still twice the height of the maples. The maples varied 

 more in size than the pines, some of them having their tops up among 

 the pine crowns while others were only a foot high. 



RICE PLACE PLANTATIONS 



The Rice Place plantations are on level sandy bottom land near 

 the French Broad River in the southern part of the estate. White 

 ash and white oak were planted there in 1903-1905 and not replanted 

 with pines. Part of the oak is in pure stands and has made good 

 growth. The trees shown in Plate 4, A, were 25 feet high and 2 inches 

 in diameter at 18 years of age. 



In another part of this plantation the oaks at 20 years were much 

 smaller, averaging 8 feet in height and an inch in diameter. Because 

 of the open character of this stand practically all the trees were 

 dominant, but the tallest were less than 20 feet high. Only a few 

 trees have died in this stand, presumably because of the lack of crowd- 

 ing due to the slow growth, whereas among the larger trees of the 

 adjacent stand the death rate has been about 15 per cent. 



It is not clear why there should have been such a marked differ- 

 ence in growth between the trees of these two stands. Although 

 considerable sand was laid down in the stand of smaller trees during 

 a flood in 1916, yet it is unlikely that this is solely responsible for the 

 difference in growth rate, a matter of something like 15 feet in six 

 years. The slower growth of these trees is probably due to some 

 unfavorable soil condition in effect prior to the 1916 flood. 



Another stand is of ash and oak. There the ash is 10 feet taller 

 than the oak, which is smaller than in the better of the pure oak 

 stands. Some of the largest ash trees were 35 feet high at 20 years 

 of age. In another stand, where the ash is pure, the growth of the 

 ash has not been quite so good. Judging by these stands, therefore, 

 ash may be expected to make better growth in mixture with oak 

 than when planted pure, but oak apparently will do better when ash 

 is not mixed with it. Further observations would be needed thor- 

 oughly to establish such relations. 



PLANTING COSTS 



From such records as are available, it appears that the cost of the 

 forest plantations at Biltmore varied from $6.30 an acre for the 

 cheapest work, carried out in the Lone Chimney plantation, to $135 

 an acre for one particulrly expensive small planting of 10-year-old 

 white pines in the Brick House plantation. At times the actual cost 

 of the planting considerably exceeded estimates made before the work 

 was begun. Schenck expected to plant Long Ridge at a cost of $5 

 an acre, but, with the very closely spaced replantings which he made, 

 it came to more than $30. The same was true of the Apiary planta- 

 tion. In both these plantations, however, a good deal of the cost 

 should be charged to experimental work. If the failures in the cases 

 of replanting are ignored and the costs are computed for the success- 

 ful plantings only, the Long Ridge plantations would come to about 



