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ing scarcity and high cost of every species of useful wood, and the need of cultivating chestnut, locust and other rapidly growing trees will become apparent. When the chestnut grows freely, trees of forty years existence will furnish from 1,500 to 2,000 rails to the acre; and though it may require the life-time of the planter to see the labor and care of his tree-nurture rewarded, the recompense is sure, and in all future time it will bring him ample returns.

In the trans-Mississippi region the soft woods, such as cottonwood, white maple and box-elder, are of extremely rapid growth in a soil noted for its virgin fertility, and we have authority for stating that these species of trees will, within twenty years, attain a diameter of from eighteen to twenty-four inches, when they can be made applicable for fuel and fencing. As temporary expedients for posts and fencing in general, the locust in the Eastern States, and the cottonwood in the trans-Mississippi region, can be utilized in twelve to fifteen years after planting. The wood in that short time will naturally not be of sufficient size or of the proper durability, but the mere fact that it can be resorted to at that immature stage, shows how easily certain growths of trees can be substituted for timber that had previously been at hand for the supply of our wants, after having attained the hardy perfection which a century or two of slow induration had imparted to them.

Trees planted in 1851, at Springfield, Ohio, have attained the following measurements in the course of twenty years:1

European Larch, 1023 inches diameter.

Paper Birch, 101⁄2 inches diameter.

Red Cedar, 91⁄2 inches diameter.
White Elm, 141⁄2 inches diameter.
White Pine, 141⁄2 inches diameter.
Norway Spruce, 14 inches diameter.
Austrian Pine, 15 inches diameter.
Aifantus, 15 inches diameter.

Burr Oak, 15 inches diameter.

Silver Poplar, 171⁄2 inches diameter.

Other trees in more cultivated soil measured:

European Larch, 18 inches.

Cypress, 20 inches.

1 Agricultural Report, 1872.

The supply of railroad sleepers and telegraph poles is à question of as great significance as that of fences. When the vast railroad and telegraph system shall have attained its full dimensions, we may conjecture the amount of durable wood we shall need for the purposes of that huge organization of motive and electric power. The remedy we would here suggest is already in force, and we find it announced that the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad Company have contracted for the planting of a quarter section of trees every ten miles along the line of the road from Atchison to the western line of the State, about 300 miles. Chestnut and white oak sleepers are in most request by the railroad companies, although they are said to stand the hard service to which they are subject not longer than six to eight years. For telegraph poles no timber is more acceptable than locust or red cedar, woods of such remarkable endurance that they are known to last for three-score years. It is a somewhat rare propensity to forecast the future, and to secure a supply of timber for twenty-five years in advance seldom falls within the scope of our great railroad projects. The market is always supplied with an abundance, and statistical knowledge in regard to the decline of the forest is either unsought or disregarded. Planting the hard timbers, and these alone will answer railroad purposes, will soon come up as a measure of necessity, and when these trees of artificial growth make their appearance, they will undoubtedly be utilized through sheer necessity, long before they have arrived at maturity.

But a more important subject than all this we shall certainly find in the increasing diminution of the white pine. Hitherto this well known timber has been the desirable material used to meet all our architectural wants. The ease with which is can be worked and its durability render it almost indispensable, and its adaptability to other than architectural purposes has scarcely any limits. All statistical information, all knowledge derived from dealers in lumber and men whose abode is in the white pine forest, give us to understand that the consumption of this cherished wood will soon outrun the supply. The time also for laying up a reserve for all the future wants of building and various mechanical appliances is past, and the opportunity we once possessed of doing it cannot be recalled.

Agricultural Report, 1872.

The white pine, in common with the tulip-tree (Liriodendron tulipefera), cottonwood, basswood and other soft woods can be planted and reared, but it cannot be made of much service until grown to maturity, and when this tree is gone, we shall find our refuge in chestnut and the numerous soft woods and the fragile and more evanescent varieties of timber that are now in partial use and only serviceable when combined with white pine. Should the white pine, or hemlock, or spruce, be cultivated for future supplies of the valuable material they afford us, we shall find in nature herself our best instructor as to the chemical elements required for the successful propagation of the pine, spruce and fir. The study of European dendrology will greatly facilitate our researches into the nature of climate and soil with which the Pinus and Abies genera are fond of associating, as the laws of sylviculture in that hemisphere will, in some respects, be found applicable here. Forest Director Jäger, to whom we have previously referred, gives us a copious analysis of the soil and climate that are indispensable to the life of the firs and hemlocks. He claims for the Pinus Sylvestris, the German Kiefer, a deep clay loam with an ample covering of humus; but restricts it to no particular locality, as it will thrive either on the mountains or the plain. The Fichte, on the contrary (Abies Excelsa or Pinus Picea), demands an extremely thin soil, rich in humus, but most decidedly a humid atmosphere. In Europe it will grow on the slate rock, provided the atmosphere in which it subsists is adequately moist. This remark of Jäger's is corroborated by the striking characteristic of our hemlock (Abies Canadensis), a tree found growing everywhere in the latitude of Pennsylvania on the arid and thinly covered slate formations, but generally along streams, whose exhalations of moisture seem essential to its life and beautifully sombre verdure. The substitution of chestnut for white pine is an event in the history of American timber which does not await realization, for it has already begun. This wood grows in most all soils, is a successor of the oak, whenever it makes its spontaneous appearance, and is ready to be hewn for the uses we are now dwelling upon, such as ordinary building and ornamental architecture, in seventy years. In point of utility it will never rival the white pine, but will only serve as a substitute for one of the most cherished of our lost woods.

The inestimable black walnut, which is now rapidly disappearing

from all its native seats, and has been enhanced to an incredible price, can be propagated and brought to early maturity. In applying this expression, we have reference to the great perfection of quality it attains in the comparatively short period of half a century, and we have to remark, as a general thing, the pursuits of dendrology and tree-growing will be governed by more deliberate action and the anticipation of later rewards than the American mind is accustomed to yield to; and as we enter this new field of acquisition and science combined, we shall have to exchange our restless decades for centuries of quiet anticipation. Two centuries are not an unfrequent term among the forest culturists of Europe, and we shall have to adapt the thought to its resulting benefits in contributing our energies to the future welfare of the nation.

Immense numbers of walnut trees that now stand gracing and beautifying many an aged rural homestead owe their origin to the wisdom of the planter, and are, in such situations, rarely of spontaneous growth. The affection for the tree, and the increased estimation that begins to attach itself to it, are rendering it an object of universal culture, and we hope to see an enthusiasm in its behalf spring up throughout the land.

The wise provision of nature in the creation of mixed growths of trees is profoundly discussed by Jäger, who adopts the theory and employs it as his ground-idea, since it has had its confirmation in all past forestal experience, that mixed plantations are essential to the largest yield, and promotive of the salutary existence of forest vegetation. The birch and maple provide a luxuriant supply of leaf to feed, by the abundance of humus it creates, the needle woods that are often found among them. They require a full supply of light to promote their life and growth, which they receive by associating with the firs and pines, which from the fact of being non-producing shade trees, belong to the class of light-plants3. These laws of reciprocity explain in the most lucid terms the secret movements in creation, and the various processes of the vegetable world; they beautifully illustrate order and design, and an ever-failing provision for the perpetuation of life in all organic existence. This author also points out how the oak, when standing among its own species, is

3 On the subject of mixed tree plantations the ablest writer quoted by Jäger is Cotta.

disposed to exhaust its soil and impede its own growth; whereas, when associated with the beech or other leaf woods, it reaches greater age and becomes more productive.

Amid the various recent schemes of forest culture, we have seen no reference made to this great law, this kind protection shown by nature in her wonderful arrangements as traced throughout the vegetable world. In the numerous projects thrown out from time to time, we are struck with the ruling idea that seems to prevail, which is to raise the utmost possible quantity on a given space of land. We accordingly recommend to our tree-growers a faithful study of the German writers on dendrology, and advise them not to venture upon vast speculations in sylviculture without a previous knowledge of the immutable demands of sylvan vegetable life. Plantations of unmixed growths have no doubt been attempted, and, in some localities, may have succeeded; but in following the illustrations so ingeniously given by Jäger and others on this subject, we cannot but acquiesce in the wisdom of the rule laid down by them.

Four years ago, the Hon. R. J. Haldeman, of Pennsylvania, introduced a bill into the House of Representatives to encourage the planting of trees and the preservation of the woods in the public domain held by the United States. The bill was supported by an able and interesting speech, elucidating the subject by a general outline of European forestry, and the vicissitudes of former centuries. Congress at the time appeared to take but little interest in the matter, and but few results followed this initiatory movement to enact a system of forest protection and restoration. From the fate of this solitary effort made by a statesman of extended views, it does not seem probable that any effective measures can ever be taken in behalf of the forest that may apply to the States east of the Mississippi; and the cause will probably be assumed by the States themselves, to whom the jurisdiction of the forest, whenever public property can be acquired in this form, should properly belong. In 1866 the State of Kansas enacted a law, allowing every person who planted one or more acres of prairie land within ten years from that time, a bounty of two dollars per acre, the premium to commence three years after the passage of the act, and to be continued for twenty-five years.

See Bill No. 2197, House of Representatives, April 11, 1872, and speech of Hon. R. J. Haldeman.

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