and shaded these trees, their growth might have been greatly accelerated when young. How clearly such facts prove that chance and nature are not the best foresters; that man can aid them in the growing of timber as in the growing of other crops; that God was not unwise in setting Adam to work in taking care of the tree garden, park, or Paradise of Eden. View No. 3 is a fine picture of young pines on my New Durham lot taken by Shackford, the well known photographer of Farmington. These are on dryer and poorer land than those shown in view No. 2, and they are also much younger. I regret that I cannot give their age and size more accurately. Perhaps they had started when I bought the deserted farm in 1870 and perhaps not. Some idea of their height and size may be gained by considering the man seen in the left side of the picture, as 6 feet in height, and weighing 180 pounds. Their beauty and rapid growth are evident. I judge their average gain in diameter is about 2 inches in five years. They have been carefully thinned twice, with some additional thinning when we saw a tree which we intend to grow into good sized timber becoming too crowded; we prune some at every thinning. The limbs are small, and those cut off are mostly dead, but we do not hesitate to take off some green limbs. These trees will need thinning and pruning as often as once every three years for quite a number of years. In fact, if I lived near them I should be likely to thin and prune them a little every year for several years. Had my larger trees, shown in the last two views further on in this paper, been taken as early in their life as these were, they would now have been considerable larger and more valuable. The rapidity of growth depends very largely upon the room or space given the tree; ofcourse the larger the tree, the more space it needs. My idea has been to grow quite rapidly by often thinning, so that at about 45 years of age to have about 100 pines left to the acre, and expect these at 60 years of age to make 500 feet to the tree, or 50,000 feet of boards to the acre. Every tree to be very nearly straight, all sound and the butt logs of 20 feet, or more, in length entirely free from knots, except very small ones near the heart. The interest on the investment and the taxes are very impor tant items to be considered in forestry. Allowing money to double every 15 years, the interest on a crop cut at 60 years of age would be only one eighth as much as on a crop cut at 105 years of age, or, in other words, each dollar invested in a crop for 60 years becomes $16 and at 105 years becomes $128. This consideration, with that of the taxes upon them for a century, makes it of immense advantage to get a rapid growth and early sale. Our veteran friend Barnard, of Mast Point, which is in or near our Concord, is one of the wisest and best informed foresters I have ever met. He is inclined to grow 160 pines to the acre. Hon. B. E. Fernow, the highest official upon forestry subjects under our national government, recommends the growing of 270 timber trees to the acre till 100 years of age. Hon. Joseph B. Walker thought to grow 160 pines to the acre but has now, after more experience, concluded that a considerable less number is more profitable. Poutney states 27 as the number of largest oaks to be grown to the acre unless you shorten in their limbs when you can grow 70. One fifth of the height of the trees to be the distance between them, is an old English rule. This would give 108 pines, 100 feet in height to the acre, or about 75 pines 120 feet high. With our taxes, rates of interest, and markets, I think the English rule of having the distance between the trees equal to one fifth their height keeps the trees rather too near together for the most profitable growth for timber. Oaks require more space than firs. He also J. C. Brown, whose works on forestry are well known, says that for firs he has found the proper distance between the trees to be about one third their height. 200 oak trees grown 100 years on one acre 104 oaks grown 90 years on an acre sold for £868. 1820 when oak and bark were very high." (Quite likely these were Scotch acres of 6,150 yards instead of ours of 4,840.) We here notice that the less number of trees grown to the acre, the more the crop brought, and that notwithstanding the venerable, several-. generation-old scare about the near approach of a timber famine. We suppose trees just like those would now bring much less than they did 75 years ago. |