74 
INDIANAPOLIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
ing power. The same authority should award premiums* 
freedom from taxation, or other benefit, for the replanting 
of trees on the old fields and the cultivation of timber trees 
on the prairies on the northern and western border of the 
State. By judicious planting our climate will be improved, 
and our live stock, our waters, our farms, our gardens, and 
our fruit be protected. Besides, as a matter of investment 
for early returns, new growths will yield an annual income 
with less care and more profit than any staple crop. 
If this is true so near the center of what is left of the 
grand primeval forests, how much more desirable replant¬ 
ing would be on the cleared and devastated lands of the 
eastern seaboard! 
Our friend, Dr. Warder, of Cincinnati, Ohio, relates an 
instance of an old farm taken in hand fourteen years ago 
and planted with the Robinia Tseudacacia —common 
Locust. During the last summer there was cut from this 
plantation, timber which sold on the ground at the rate of 
eight hundred dollars an acre. None of the sticks counted 
more than twelve and fifteen rings of annual growth. 
At the risk of some repetition, where different varieties 
of wood are required for the same purposes, we shall give 
a brief statement of the leading varieties of wood native to 
Indiana, and a portion of the uses to which they are 
applied. Among the synonyms below the last name under 
each head will be the one in popular use in this State. 
Acer Saccharinum , Rock or Sugar Maple, Sugar tree— 
one of the most beautiful and majestic trees in our forests, 
growing from fifty to eighty feet in height, and from two 
to four feet in diameter. In open situations, with free 
exposure to light and air, it has always seemed to us the 
most beautiful of the round headed trees. The intense 
■dark green of its compact foliage during the spring and 
summer, changes with the early frosts of autumn to all 
