1869 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
219 
this noble tree pretty attentively for several 
years, and the only time its leaves were found 
to be tinged by the frost was in January and 
February, 1868; then the tip ends of many of 
the branches were changed to a russet color, or 
rusty brown, which soon wore off, however, as 
the spring advanced. It is well known that 
that was the severest and most trying winter for 
evergreens which we have experienced for many 
years. The past December, also, was unusually 
cold, but it did no injury to the foliage of the 
Cedars of Lebanon in Flushing, there being 
several others of considerable size there, in ad¬ 
dition to the one described above. 
A cold, moist soil is injurious to this tree, and 
it should be grown standing clear of all others. 
I could but remark the great difference in size 
and superiority in general appearance of the 
specimens at Warwick Castle Park, and other 
places in England, standing by themselves, to 
those which grew up more closely surrounded 
by other trees in the Jardin des Plantes, at Paris. 
The Wanton Destruction of Timber. 
BT M. L. CURTIS, CLYDK, OHIO. 
If there is one subject upon which it seems 
impossible for farmers to properly reason, it is 
the importance of saving what little remains to 
us of our forests. Ohio to-day has one mile of 
railroad for every ten sections of land, with 
thousands of locomotives and tens of thousands 
of cars, and shops, depots, docks, bridges, tanks, 
ties, sheds, and shanties* without number. The 
shrill scream of the locomotive’s whistle rever¬ 
berating through every forest proclaims its 
doom. And Ohio is only a sample of other tim¬ 
bered States. In addition to their own want 3 
are the long, lank arms of the timberless regions 
of the West stretched out for supplies. Then in 
addition to this are the hucksters, hawkers, and 
runners, that swarm through the land in search 
of ship timber, car timber, cabinet timber, pipe, 
butt, oil, and barrel staves, spokes, bent work, 
hubs, ax-helves, hoop-poles, oar-blades, hand¬ 
spikes, ship-knees, fork and rake stales, hoe- 
handles, ball clubs, police staves, and walking 
canes, to be sent far and wide. Besides this the 
demand for timber to build steamers, sail and 
other vessels, docks, and elevators for our vast 
inland waters as well as for the seaports, and 
the requirements to build our cities, villages, 
hamlets, and farm-buildings; to bridge our 
streams, fence our fields, and warm our dwell¬ 
ings, and the thousand other unnamed uses to 
which timber i3 daily applied, gives but a faint 
view of the demands for to-day. But who shall 
compute the demand of to-morrow ? Every 
cough from the locomotive’s hoarse lungs aug¬ 
ments it. Still, in the face of all this, farmers all 
over our land who are not pinched for timber 
will argue, “ Why let the timber cumber the 
ground, which, if cleared, would net $3 to $10 
profit per acre a year? This at interest would 
more than buy our timber for all purposes.” 
And so farmers with scanty wood lots are clear¬ 
ing acre after acre, and who shall arrest it ? 
The skillful chopper in one hour demolishes the 
majestic oak that has required the heavenly 
benedictions of sunshine and showers for three 
centuries to grow it. Two years ago an old 
pioneer living in the interior of Ohio told me that 
could he have the timber back on his 200-acre 
farm that nearly killed him and his wife in getting 
it off, it would sell for $300 per acre, standing. 
Anil it was true. I told this to one of my neigh¬ 
bors who was about to clear off his last timber 
on the plea that the use of the land would be 
r . Training Raspberries. 
In growing raspberries on the large scale, a 
stake is used to support the canes; but in 
garden culture, not only is greater neatness se¬ 
cured, but the new canes which are to bear 
fruit the next year have 
a better opportunity to 
develop, if some kind of 
a trellis is used. One of 
the simplest supports is 
the hoop trellis, (fig. 1) 
given by Mr. Fuller in 
his Small Fruit Cultur- 
ist. It is made by driv¬ 
ing a stake each side of 
a stool, and nailing a 
barrel hoop to, them. 
„ The canes are to be train- 
Fig. 1.—noop training. , , , , „ 
ed to the hoop, and fas¬ 
tened, to prevent them from blowing about. 
Another method of training is shown in fig. 2, 
in which two stakes are driven, one on each 
side of the plant; the bearing canes are bent 
more profitable to him than to save the timber. 
But I might as well have told it to one of his 
trees, for his men are now cutting the last acre. 
The time has come when the growing of tim¬ 
ber throughout the prairie and older settled 
States should be encouraged, and entered upon 
in earnest. The writer, in a few experi¬ 
ments in growing timber where lie now 
resides, has obtained the following re¬ 
sults: Cotton-wood, 13 years’ growth, 60 
feet high, and 18 inches in diameter 2 feet 
above ground; Sycamore (Button-wood) 
about the same diameter, but not so tall; 
one sample Yellow Willow showed the 
enormous growth of the annual rings of 
over 2 inches in width; Locust of 20 
years’ growth attained a diameter of 12 
to 15 inches, tall and symmetrical, and it 
is a hardy, durable, and valuable kind of 
timber. Some samples of Butternut, 
Black Walnut, and Yellow Oak, left standing in 
the fields, show about the same dimensions. 
Much of the reserved timber is prematurely 
dying, which the owners would gladly prevent 
if they knew the causes. Some of the causes 
are underbrushing and pasturing. For it is a 
fact beyond controversy that our primitive for¬ 
est trees die in a short time after the ground un¬ 
der them becomes turfed over and hardened by 
the tread of stock. And it,is better economy 
to pelt the sheep and shoot the cattle rather 
than to continue the practice. 
Another active agent in the destruction of 
timber is ditching. Timber grown on wet land 
is very sensitive to the spade. Ditch around 
the woods rather than through them, if possible. 
Some argue that stone coal is preferable to wood 
for fuel. Let those who wish to breathe car¬ 
bonic acid and the fumes of sulphur, and have 
their bodies begrimmed with smut, their rooms 
blackened, and the rain dropping from their 
eaves like ink, accept the coal. The intrinsic 
value of timber, the relative value of the differ¬ 
ent kinds, the near day in the future that will 
see our pine and other forests exhausted with 
the accumulating agencies of destruction now 
at work, the thermal modifications the forests 
exert upon the soil and atmosphere, the certain¬ 
ty that the removal of the forests would repeat 
here what it lias done elsewhere, in turning our 
beautiful and productive country into a bar¬ 
ren waste, are matters of great moment, and 
should come home to every lover of his country. 
over and tied to the stakes, while the new ones 
grow up in the centre. An improvement on 
this is to use a wire trellis, which allows both 
the bearing and the new canes to be supported. 
Mr. W. R. Davis,- Crawford Co., O., sends us 
his method, which has some features different 
Fig. 2. —TRAINING TO STAKES, 
from any other plan we have seen. He puts 
strongly braced posts, which project 2'| 2 feet 
out of the ground, at the ends of the rows, and 
other stakes at every fourth plant. A No. 12 
galvanized wire is stretched between the end 
posts, and fastened at the top of the intermedi¬ 
ate stakes by means of a small staple, driven 
over the wire. Supposing this to be put up at 
the time the roots are planted, the new canes, 
of which four are allowed to grow, are tied to 
the wire when high enough. The second year 
two canes from each stool are bent over, and 
Fig. 3. —TRAINING TO A WIRE. 
tied to the wire, as shown in fig. 3, while the 
new canes grow up straight, and are secured to 
the wire. After the fruiting canes are removed, 
the new canes are bent oyer in their place. 
From the number of inquiries that are made, 
we infer that it is not generally understood that 
raspberry canes bear fruit but once. After 
the fruit is off, they are to be removed, and the 
new growth trained up to supply their places. 
Currants. —The old Red Dutch, well ma¬ 
nured and mulched, will give as large fruit as 
the Versailles and other large kinds will, if neg¬ 
lected. Mulch the bushes with whatever litter 
is at hand, and apply powdered hellebore at the 
first appearance of the worm. A correspondent 
at La Porte, Ind., writes that he has obtained 
remarkable results from tbe use of leached ashes. 
Scale Lice. —The eggs of the Oyster-shell 
Bark louse hatch this month, and the young 
brood of very minute lice make their way to the 
tender, new shoots, where they fix themselves. 
They soon become covered with an impermea¬ 
ble shield, and can only be destroyed before 
they are thus protected. Watch them carefully, 
and at the hatching time apply strong soapsuds. 
