White-Pine Plantations

Another lot on the same farm has a stand of white pine on it about sixty years old that experts estimate will cut 200,000 feet of lumber. The average log measures over sixty feet.

In the Massachusetts town of Tyngsborough is a plot of fifty-three acres that was a rye field within the memory of men now living. It grew up to young white pine, and was bought for $400. The timber is not yet of marketable age, though by selection the owner has taken out over 600,000 feet of lumber during his life. His estate was recently appraised, and the stand of pine estimated at ioo,000 feet. As white pine is becoming scarcer and the demand for it urgent, the price has risen steadily.

Hon. J. D. Lyman, of Exeter, New Hampshire, gives the reasons for his success with white pine. He gathers cones in early September, spreads them in a dry, airy room, and when they open beats out the seeds. This is about a fortnight after they are gathered. He prefers to sow the seed at once in beds. For three years the young seedlings are cultivated, lath screens protecting them from the hot sun. Then they are ready to set out. If they are to grow unpruned and be cut at forty years or so for boxboards they are set nine or ten feet apart each way. If clear timber of the best quality is desired, they are set four feet apart each way so that they will grow tall and lose their lower limbs. This kind of timber requires longer time to grow, and it must be pruned and thinned as it needs it. The price it brings is higher. Access to market and cost of the necessary labour determine which course to pursue. Mr. Lyman believes that a thickly planted young forest properly thinned will in fifty years produce as much lumber as it would produce in twice that time if left unthinned.

Hon. Augustus Pratt of Massachusetts once planted thirteen acres of blueberry thicket to white pines. It took one man eight days to do it. Forty years later he went in and cut from eight acres between forty and forty-five cords of box-board logs which he sold at the mill for $6 per cord. He got considerable fuel out of the tops. The five acres remaining he held untouched for a few years—then sold them for more than $1,000.

A small pine forest in Enfield, Connecticut, is noteworthy. Two quarts of pine seed per acre were sown in September broad cast with rye on the worn-out sand plain, which had been first ploughed and harrowed, then rolled. No further attention was paid to either crop. The rye shaded the seedlings as long as they required shade. The slow, imperfect growth achieved is not what it would have been if Mr. Cutter had had it in his care. But the soil has been enriched by the litter of the forest, and there is considerable good timber. Desert land has been reclaimed.

Certain facts have been learned from the study of white pine plantations. They are worth bringing together and empha sising.

. Cleared land is the best for a pine plantation.

2. Hilly, rolling or level land, moderately dry, with not too dense a ground cover, is best.

3. Swampy land will not do at all.

4. Land with scattering brush gives young seedling pines the shade they need.

5. Land thickly set with stumps of hardwoods which produce dense coppice growth will kill out the young pines.

6. White pine grows well in sandy and exposed situations if protected from the direct influence of salt winds.

7. Seedlings may be successfully taken from the forest.

8. Planted white pine uncrowded grows faster than native pine for twenty years, perhaps longer.

9. Trees set 4 x 4 feet apart should be thinned by removing half of them at fifteen years. Set 4 x 6 feet, remove half at thirty years.

lo. Pruning lower limbs as high as axe can be used converts third-grade pine trees into first grade. It should be done in mid summer, when resin will cover the wounds completely. The trees need pruning ten years after planting. They will be fifteen feet high, with lower limbs still alive. The cut should be clean and close to the bark.

i. It pays to prune only trees intended for first-class lum ber—trees to grow at least sixty years. Knots do not lower the price of trees cut at thirty to forty years for box boards.

12. Chestnut, rock maple and red oak are first-class trees to plant with white pine. They furnish protecticn to growing seedlings, they prune the pines by rubbing lower limbs, and are ready for removal when they begin to crowd. They are then big enough for posts and fuel.

13. The best way to fix shifting sand or gravel is to get tree roots established in it. Washing and gullying of the soil of farms is best remedied by the same means. Worn-out soil is best restored to fertility by growing a crop of trees on it.

An estimate, summarising the facts obtained by the special agent of the Bureau of Forestry, and averaging the actual cost and profits of intelligent white-pine culture in various parts of New England, is herewith set down: Total $12 04 Compounding interest on each item for forty years brings the total cost per acre to $50.99. An average yield is forty cords of box-board timber worth $4 per cord from each acre. This is worth on the stump $ 6o. Deducting the cost, $5o.99, balance of $109.o1 remains as net profit. This is a net annual return of $1.15 per acre, with 4 per cent. compound interest computed for forty years. Twenty years added greatly increases the profits.

The New England farmer cannot help the Kansas farmer, except to prove that principles are universal in application. For estry is not alone for the corporation and the state. It is practic able also on a limited area, and the smaller the woodlot the more simple the problem and the more perfectly it may be solved.