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and young plantations attached to the forest schools of 

 Europe. Director-General Adolfo Di Bdranger, President of 

 the Royal Instituto Forestale at Yallombrosa, pointed me to 

 his plantations of Fraxinus Americana with a tone which 

 implied that is the tree of which Americans may well be 

 proud. 



The ash is a fine ornamental tree for private grounds, 

 public parks, or for the way-side. When planted closely 

 for timber they grow straight and free from low laterals, 

 and early reach a size that makes the thinnings valuable 

 for poles and fencing. Mr. Budd, a tree grower of Iowa, says : 

 ''A grove of ten acres thinned to six feet apart, containing 

 twelve thousand trees, at twelve years were eight inches in 

 diameter and thirty-five feet high, the previous thinning pay- 

 ing all expenses of planting and cultivation. Ten feet of the 

 bodies of these trees were worth, for making bent stuff, etc., 

 forty cents each, and the remaining top ten cents, making a 

 total of $6,000 as the profit of ten acres in twelve years, or a 

 yearly profit of $50 per acre." Mr. Edward Norton of Farm- 

 ington has about sixteen thousand white ash plants, raised 

 from last year's seed, now in rows to be planted next spring. 

 They are very thrifty, and average about one foot in height. 

 Very few of them died during the summer. He has gathered 

 seed enough for about one hundred thousand plants, which he 

 intends to start next spring. 



The seeds of the ash are abundant, ripening by the first 

 of October. They may be easily gathered after the first 

 frost. If sown in the fall they should be covered with 

 three inches of straw. If to be sown in the spring the seed 

 may be mixed with damp sand. With all seedlings care 

 should be taken to keep down the weeds. In some of 

 the^ nurseries connected with the forest schools, I noticed 

 the seed-beds were protected by green bushes during 

 the hottest and dryest part of the summer. For field planting, 

 the land should be plowed and made mellow in the autumn, 

 that the trees may be planted early in the spring. A little 

 over five thousand plants will be required to the acre, where 

 they are set in rows four feet apart, and two feet apart in the 



