Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1876-10-06
ST. JOHNSBURY, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6. 1876.

have little horticultural sense, say they may
as well get small tree as pay for a large
one and then cut it back to a stump. And
guess they are right, as there is no occasion
for it. 1t is bad pruning in science as well
as in practice. Good pruning leaves all the
solid, vigorous branches and cuts away only
the weaker ones. 1t is these sickly, delicate
things that always die first in pinch, any
how aud when we are going to have fight
with Nature, as we always do when we trans.
plant the sooner we clear the field of all sickly
soldiers the better it will be for the rest
Let any one try this in trausplanting and he
will 6nd it literally as well as fguratively
true, Some people OBJECT to meddling with
oaks because they grow slow. They say
they will not live to see trees Of them. Now,
it is rather the other way.
Most Of the oaks are rather rapid grow
ers. True, they do not grew with briskness
of willow or q poplar, or the Herininiera
of Africa, which will increase its diameter
four inches year but know Of numerous
cases aud in different species, where the
diameter Of the oak has increased three.
quarters of an inch in year, and not under
specially favored circumstances either. |
have cut many a branch from an eight or
ten.year old tree that has given four and five
feet of growth as its seasons work.
once made dozen frst.class htching-
posts out of an oak tree but twelve years
old, and which | had to cut away because Of
a new street. Surely that was growth enough
to satisfy any reasonable creature. That
tree was of foreign species, however, the
QuercuS roJur, or the Royal Oak, which
the English tell US has "borne for Thousand
years the battle and the breeze" though |
presume not growing at this rate all the
time throughout the centuries.
Now, am not much of materialst
l love money, perhaps, some, but prefer to
have with it some of the spiritual enjoyments
of life. l have some trees on my own prop
erty no money could buy. They seem friends
Of mine There are among them cedars,
tulips, chestnuts, gums, sassafras and oaks,
aud many time have they entertained both
me and mine.
fancy there arc thousands who, like me,
look up to some tree as to part Of them
selves, and who would Indignantly spurn the
thirty pieces of silver offered to betray it.
But there are other trees and other aspects,
and never feel so much like going West
aud making money as when look upon my
young oaks and note how freely they grow.
There is no timber to equal that of the oak
for certain purposes. Ask any railroad
man, any fence-maker any bridgc-builder,
any maker of a "barrack" or other farm
building-they all place the oak above and
far in advance of other woods. Ask British
shipbuiders as to its value in the construc-
tion of ships, and they will tell you Of its
lasting qualities and point enthusiastically to
their old, wooden walls of oak in proof Of
what they say. 1t is indeed the oak which
has made England the great nation she is to-
day.
A plantation of oak in the West would
be fortune to any man, and he could turn
the fortune over dozen times in lifetime,
for oaks become profitable very soon.
should plant them about as far apart and in
the same manner as corn, so that for the first
two or three years they could be hoe-har-
rowed like corn, to keep the weeds down,
The first thinning might then commence,
and the product be turned to account for
STRAPS" for hoops and boxes, for which
there is always a good demand and for
some years atterward, in ways which are
hardly necessary to specify, there is an an
nual use to which the thinning can be ap-
piled In about ten years the acorns appear,
and then the mast is Of value in feeding hogs
and turkeys, and long before we know it the
real timber is there am quite sure that
if had l60 acres Of land in prairie coun :
try | would put at least 10 acres Of it in
oak timber, feeling perfectly satisfied that
ong-yes, long-beiore should grow gray,
if were as young as | once was, | would
make more out of the land in that way than
| should out Of any other part Of the farm.
OF varieties for rapid timber growth, l
incline to the opinion that the English is the
best, notwithstanding my regard for the
species of our own land. | believe it will
grow into money faster aud that the timber
is at least as good as any in this country,
Live Oak not excepted, and then for the
purpose of hog feeding none can come near
it, 1t bears young and abundantly, and
every year.
For timber purposes, OF the hardy kinds
of our own species adapted to cold climates,
the white oak is good so is the chestnut oak ;
next l should place the black, scarlet and
red oaks The bark Of the black aud chest
nut oaks is valuable for tanners use, fol
after all the substitutes for bark in tanning
and the per cent. Of tannin found in Sumac
Polypodium amphibirum, and other things,
doubt whether most tanners would not
prefer good old oak bark. At any rate
while we are growing good oak timber, we
are making bark also, whereas in most OF
the substitutes the whole growth is useless
except for the percentage of tanuc acid they
eontain-Rural Ne'D Yorker.