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which is eight dollars per acre. About one hundred and fifty acres of sandy 

 land, utterly barren and not worth fifty cents to the acre, have been planted, the 

 present value of which is seven dollars per acre. 



John G. Thompson, North Truro. About six hundred and fifty acres have been 

 planted in this town. The price of pitch-pine seed for the last few years has been 

 one dollar and fifty cents per pound. Thirty years ago land in this town could 

 be bought for twenty -five cents per acre for tree-planting ; now the same kind of 

 baiTcn land sells for two dollars per acre*for tree-planting. I find the expense 

 of planting the pines to be two dollars and twenty-five cents per acre. 



»S. B. Phinney, Barnstable. Large tracts of worn-out lands in this county, that 

 were worth comparatively nothing, have been planted from the seed of the pitch- 

 pine. These experiments have proved successful. I know of no way in which 

 the light sandy lands in this section can be made so valuable as by planting them 

 with the pitch-pine. Our experience proves that the cultivation of forest trees is 

 feasible and profitable in New England seaport towns. In 1845 I planted in this 

 town a ten-acre lot with pitch-pine seed, much as corn is planted, dropping three 

 seeds in a hill and covering them with half an inch of soil. To-day many of these 

 trees will girth more than a man's body. Hundreds of acres in this section are 

 being planted annually. 



J. E. Crane, Bndgewater. The most profitable tree we have planted in this 

 region is the white pine, with which about two hundred acres have been planted 

 on old worn-out pasture and light sandy soil. The cost of planting, that 

 is, setting out young trees twelve to eighteen inches high, is about eight dollars per 

 acre. Properly set out, scarcely one in fifty will fail. There is in this vicinity 

 an acre that was set out thirty-five years ago, that has just yielded in cash for 

 the wood and lumber, $350. On another acre, planted twenty-eight years ago, 

 there is estimated to be from eighty to one hundred cords. These are unusual 

 specimens, but fifty cords per acre in twenty-five years, is a low estimate on land 

 natural to pine, and pine is the most valuable growth of wood in the Old Colony. 



F. CoUamore, Pembroke. Forty years since, Hon. Morrill Allen, " the model 

 farmer " of Plymouth county, planted white pines which grew rapidly, and have 

 proved very valuable for the manufacture of wooden packing-boxes. His exam- 

 ple has been followed to a limited extent. Every one believes in the profit of it, 

 but we are in a well-wooded region, and when a lot is cut off it soon starts up 

 again. 



Robert Douglas and Sons, Waukegan, Illinois. "We have propagated the Euro- 

 pean larch for nearly twenty years. For a number of years, and until the finan- 

 cial collapse, we sowed over one thousand pounds of larch seeds annually, averaging 

 five to seven thousand plants to the pound of seed. The larch grows finely and 

 rapidly in the New England States, in northern Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and 

 Wisconsin. It grows nearly as fast, and makes more durable timber on poor 

 lands than on very rich lands. There is no land so poor, except blowing sands, 

 but that it will make a rapid growth after it is once fairly established. It is a 

 tree adapted to a northern climate, and does not thrive in Kansas, southern Illi- 

 nois, and south of Pennsylvania. We are growing the native cherry ( Cerasus 

 seratina) in large quantities, as it is healthy, transplants well, grows rapidly on 

 land far from rich, and the timber is very valuable. We will send our catalogues, 

 giving fuller information, to any party in Connecticut on application. The Euro- 

 pean larch should be planted as early as possible in the spring. It should never be 

 planted on low wet ground. Set out early, no tree will bear transplanting better. 

 Scotch pine and larch do well mixed. We recommend planting a few rows of 

 the admixture on the margin of the plantation. When planted four feet by four, 

 as we advise, they can be worked both ways with the cultivator for two or three 

 years, when the branches will shade the ground so densely as to destroy the 

 undergrowth. When the trees are received from the nursery, the boxes should 

 be immediately unpacked and the roots dipped into a puddle made of rich, mellow 

 soil about the thickness of paint, and kept in a shaded place till ready to plant, 

 but the tops should be kept dry. Set the trees a little deeper than they stood in 

 the nursery. After treading the earth firmly about the roots, draw a little loose 

 earth up to the trees to prevent the surface from baking. 



