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BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 379 
acres of pine timber in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, have led 
me to the conclusion that where there is no other timber mixed with 
the pine, on a warm, loamy soil, in a growth of from thirty to 
thirty-five years, one hundred thousand feet of box boards may be 
obtained; but on an average soil the usual thirty-years’ growth 
has been found to be about fifty thousand feet, when but little 
other wood is mixed with it. The expense of cutting, drawing, 
sawing, and drying, is from $5.00 to $6.00 per thousand feet; 
which at the present price of box-boards would leave the owner of 
the land about $2.50 per thousand on the stump, or $125.00 
per acre. This sum would pay a good interest on the investment, 
if the land had cost not more than $15.00 per acre when the pines 
first started to grow. 
During the civil war, at a time when I was paying $13.00 per 
thousand for box-boards, one acre of white pine trees in Scituate, 
Massachusetts, was put out to be cut and sawed into box-boards 
on shares; the owner to have half the money the boards sold for; 
he received $500.00 for his share. As the contractor kept his 
own account and paid the owner whatever he pleased, it is fair to 
presume he did not pay more than half the amount he had ob- 
tained from the acre. These trees had been growing not over 
forty years. To secure a growth like this, it is not only necessary 
to have a good soil, but also to have the ground well covered with 
trees. When nature is left to her own way, there are, almost 
always, open spaces of one or more rods where no seedlings start. 
With very little labor, when the seedlings are small, these spaces 
might be filled with trees from portions of the field where there is 
a surplus, and in this way it would be easy to secure one-hundred- 
thousand feet of box-boards in thirty years from each acre of land 
of good soil, provided, of course, that the land can be kept free 
from fires. A careful measurement of land, and counting of trees 
in a large number of forests in eastern Massachusetts, leads me 
to the conclusion that three trees will grow on each rod of land, in 
thirty or thirty-five years, to a size of sixteen inches in diameter 
one foot from the ground, and high enough for the three to make 
eight hundred feet of box-boards; at this rate, an acre would 
produce one hundred and twenty-eight thousand feet. 
At thirty-five years of age many of the trees in the pine forests 
of eastern Massachusetts commonly show signs of decay, except 
