42 | FORESTRY OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
ORDER OF VALUE. 
The order of ultimate value, deciduous varieties, while there may be 
difference of individual opinion, it is safe to arrange: white, burr, and 
chestnut oaks; black and white walnut; white, green, and blue ash; 
black cherry, catalpa, black locust, honey locust, Kentucky coffee tree, 
elms, hickories, larch, soft maple, hackberry, mulberry, cottonwoods, 
willows, box elder. 
For present or near value, cottonwoods—especially the yellow—are 
almost universally conceded preferable. There are, as shown, two 
varieties, yellow and white—monilifera and heterophylla. The yellow 
makes excellent lumber, particularly for inside uses, not exposed to 
weather. For shingles, only pine, cedar, or walnut are superior. Both 
make good fuel, after reasonable drying or seasoning. Old steamboat 
and mill men prefer half-seasoned cottonwood to any other obtainable 
in this region, claiming they get more steam from it; also much used in 
burning brick. No other wood holds nails so well. 
Red cedar, white, Scotch, and Austrian pines stand in order of value 
as evergreens, and are usually so planted. 
ORDER OF PLANTING. 
The order of tree-planting, numerically speaking, of deciduous varie- 
ties is, aS near aS may be, cottonwoods, box elder, soft maple, elms, 
ashes, black walnut, honey locust, catalpa, oaks, hickories, Kentucky 
coffee tree, black locust, larch, sycamore, hackberry, mulberry, black 
cherry, and willows. ‘Two-thirds of the whole are cottonwoods, from 
the facts they are more easily obtained, cost less, are of more rapid and 
certain growth, and from which realizations are more speedily and cer- 
tainly secured, and, in addition, succeed almost anywhere planted. 
SPONTANEOUS GROWTHS RANGE IN ORDER OF VALUE. 
Oaks: red and black, perhaps, predominating; hickories: more shag- 
bark than others. Black walnut, elms, linden, white ash, mulberry, and 
hackberry on higher lands; on bottoms, cottonwoods, box elder, wil- 
lows, Sycamore, soft maples, green and water ash. 
PRICE OF FOREST-TREE SEEDLINGS. 
Prices of forest-tree seedlings are such as to place them within reach 
of the very poorest; in fact, as the great bulk planted are of sponta- 
neous origin, they are to be had for mere gathering in regions where 
found. When trafficked in, prices range, owing to variety and size, from 
six inches to four feet, all along from fifty cents to three dollars per 
thousand; nursery-grown plants grade higher. Many millions are now 
planted annually. 
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