638 



THE AGBICULTUBAL JOURNAL. 



but as yet they are only knoA^'n to botan- 

 ists. They require to be sent to a market 

 where their value would be thoroughly 

 understood. When this so devoutly to 

 be wished consummation is attained, the 

 foresters would go systematically to work, 

 taking the forest on the face and felling 

 all mature trees, get rid of weakly, use- 

 less trees, save all plants of useful kinds, 

 and plant bare spaces with better varieties. 

 Thus, at the outset, a rich harvest would 

 be gathered without planting ; but fell- 

 ing without replanting is contrary to 

 the rules of good forestry. '• Therefore," 

 says Mr. Pentzcke, " we must replant 

 in order to leave a harvest for those 

 who come after us, for tve shall not reap 

 the benefit of what we have planted." 

 In writing of the Diseases in Plant 

 Act, he complains that the planter is much 

 hampered and handicapped by its opera- 

 tion, and maintains that the greatest pest 

 is neglect. During the early period of 

 cedar-getting Mr. Pentzcke's next-door 

 neighbour had a selection comprising 160 

 acres. On this area he and his neighbour 

 felled cedar-ti-ees, which yielded 300,000 

 superficial feet of sound timber, whilst a 

 great quantity was left as waste. Not a 

 single tree was felled under eight feet in 

 girth, because as all timber-getters know, 

 cedar of less girth is not worth any thing ; 

 in fact, to fell smaller trees is nothing 

 short of criminal. As soon as the regular 

 Cedar-getters had taken off the large 

 timber, the land was selected for farming. 

 Then the selector cut down all the re- 

 maining timber, even that only two feet 

 in diameter, and pit-sawed it. Now, had 

 he allowed that young timber to mature, 

 it would by this time have increased 2O0 

 per cent, in size and value. There is still 

 a great quantity of young cedar and over 

 eighty fine bean trees on this land, besides 

 numbers of other excellent timbers. One 

 acre is planted in coffee, staked with bean- 

 tree stakes. Had the timber producing 

 these stakes been cut in " flitches," and 

 sold to veneer - cutters, it would have 

 brought £6. 



We are greatly obliged to Mr. Pentzcke 

 for his interesting letter. If more Northern 

 men were like minded, it would not be 

 long before private forest culture would 

 form a valuable Northern industry. Some 

 people scoui the idea of tree-planting, on 

 the ground that they would be in their 



graves before any profit could be reaped 

 from a plantation. Such people forget 

 that all good parents try and make some 

 provision for their children. A couple 

 of hundred acres of cedar and pine well 

 managed would form a legacy which 

 would render their children independent 

 in the prime of life. 



This reminds us of a German story 

 about tree-planting. Some travellers saw 

 an old man of seventy planting an orchard 

 of young cherry-trees, and they asked 

 him why he was so foolish as to plant 

 trees, the fruit of which he could not hope 

 to live to enjoy. "I shall probably not 

 live to enjoy the fruit, certainly, but 

 those who come after me will enjoy it 

 and bless the memory of the planter," 

 was the old man's leply. 



Cutworms, 



THE vast amount of damage done to the 

 onion crops in New York State by 

 cutworms has led to a series of experi- 

 ments to demonstrate the most efEective 

 method of destroying the stealthy marau- 

 ders. The results are issued in a special 

 bulletin, and it appears that they tried 

 spraying the onion with a mixture of pul- 

 verised resin 5 lb., fish oil or any animal 

 oil 1 pint, concentrated lye 1 lb., mixed 

 with 5 gallons of water, and then 1 gallon 

 of this used in 160 gallons of water. They 

 also tried spraying at night with kerosene 

 emulsion, but both these methods proved 

 unsatisfactory in many respects. A bait 

 made of bunches of freshly-cut grass 

 dipped in a solution of one part Paris 

 green to eighty parts of water, and another 

 made of 1 lb. of Paris green to 50 lb. of 

 bran, moistened, did not prove of as much 

 value as a mixture of bran, or equal parts 

 of hran and middlings mixed as above 

 with the Paris green, and applied dry. 

 This can be sown in drills along the out- 

 side of the field to trap and kill worms if 

 they come from other fields ; it can be 

 easily and uniformly applied with the 

 onioa-seed drill ; it can be sown in drills 

 alongside the rows of onions, and the 

 labour required is much less than that of 

 mixing with water and ladling it out in 

 piles. For other garden crops, such as 

 tomatoes, egg-plants, sweet-potatoes, cab- 

 bages, etc., it is advised to use a table- 



