Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-03-29
FARM AND GARDEN.
PLANT YOUNG TREES

The following Is from California paper,
and relates TO subject of great importance:
off man owns piece Of land, however
small, should he retain II long enough, or
should it pass into the hands of bis heirs,
assigns or creditors, there is nothing that
will pay him, or them, SO well as the
trifling labor in the frequent putting of
the seed of some tree or other into the
ground.
aEngiand, which was originally one vast
forest, now receives all her supplies of tim
Der from abroad. The scarcity of wood is
even more felt in Germany and in France,
where the jealousy with which the forests
are guar ded, sufficiently attes their present
value. We, in the United States, are ap-
preaching, though slowly, the same goal,
and my well felicitate ourselves upon our
present abundance.
sit doubtless, to this fast generation,
seems a slow procedure to plant anything
for the profitable products of which we
must wait twenty years. Nevertheless, if
not to ourselves, to those who come after
us there will be an ultimate compensa-
ton far surprising our present Calcutta
TONS"
In twenty-five years from this time, the
area in this country that now has forty mil
lion people, will contain eighty million,
who, by still larger increase of wealth,
will need about three times the quantity of
timber we now consume. But to
raise 8 pine tree large enough to
make good plank will take fifty years.
By that time our population will be aug
mented fourfold, and our forests, so far as
they contain good timber, will be reduced
to one-Fourth Of what they now are. In
der such conditions, what will the sons Of
the United States born, in 1873, pay for
pine, oak, poplar and chestnut timber, when
in active business and fifty years old?
Now we work at about seventy-fve cents,
or, at most, dollar day, 10 cut down our
magnificent forests, and send timber to
Europe, West Indies, and elsewhere
abroad, by the hundred million feet year.
Tennessee supplies slaves for wine
cases to the south Of France. Slaves
for sugar hogshe2ds, ship timber, building
timber, and lumber generally, have much
wider distribution. The wants of the vast
outside world are expanding much faster
than our own. There is, however, one ele-
ment Of home consumption that deserves
special notice. We have at this time forty
million energetic people al work depicting
American sol-some By raising crops il
the country, and some by consuming bread
stuffs and provisions in cities, without max
ing any return to the fields that produced
either their food or clothing. Cities
make 10 compensation to the
soil for its staples. In
this way the citizens who live in cities,
villages and rural districts, have almost I'M
consciously manufactured over one hun
died million acres of impoverished and
turned out old fields. This naturally drives
millions into the woots 10 clear land on
wh ch to raise grain for bread-not for tim
Der, slaves nor lumber. In few years our
vigorous republic will have one hundred
million persons at work desolating the soil
that gives them both bread and meat. In
this gicat national labor nothing in the fu-
ture is more likely than the destruction of
American forests within fifty years. In
view Of these facts, farmers can not begin
too soon iu Tennessee to plant walnuts for
lumber, that is likely to be worth $500 a
thousand feet, and whose fruit will more
than ply all expenses.