Arizona citizen., 1878-01-18
THE CITIZEN.
FRIDAY. JANUARY IS, 1878.
Tree Growing fin Arizona.

I
 fuel, but to preserve the country iron
 becoming a parched desert within tho
 next century or two; in fact, much o
 the United States is Tn present danger
 of excessive drouths because of tht
 constant decrease in forests. In the
 great northwestern States, this fact i.
 one commanding serious attention
 Timber is becoming so scarce, that its
 growth to & certain extent is regarded
 more profitable than any grain crop
 A company of Bloomington Qllinois)
 men have been for years experiment
 ing in Lyon County, Iowa, and have
 demonstrated number of facts of
 much general importance among which
 we may state: That in SIX years, mark.
 etable timber to the value of S640 to
 the acre can be grown, with a surplus
 for fuel and poles useful on farms
 that the white willow is the best of
 many kinds of trees experimented with
 during seven years; that the willow
 makes the very best railroad ties, and
 the demand for them is increasing far above any natural supply, and there
 fore this one demand, to say nothing of telegraph and numerous other wants,
 lis bound to make tree-growing very
 profitable, etc.
 As we shall have occasion to again refer to this subject, we will now only add a few statements made by James
 W. Fell, manager of the Bloomington Company before referred too:
 In making these plsntings, I have eXperimented with various kinds Ot trees, including white willow, box elder, soft maple, cottonwood, white ash, basswOOd, honey locust, black walnut, chestnut, osage orange CfOr hedging), European and American larch, white and Scotch pine, arbor vita, Norway and black spruce, etc.
 Without going into an examination of the merits and demerits of these vari- ous kinds of trees, 1 will simply state why l put the willow at the head of the list for general cultivation, tO-wit: Its easy propagation from cuttings or by the laying down of poles; its per feet hardness in that climate; its rapid growth; Its adaptation to either wet or dry ground; the strength and durability of its timber; it's reproduction from the stump when cut down, no matter how old the tree may be when cut; its free dom from suckers from the roots; Its exemptions from all diseases, so far as 1 know from more than sixty years observation; its large growth, and yet its capability of being pressed into a hedge, or, more properly speaking, a stockade, etc.
 In some localities or kind of soil, l am willing to concede the more rapid growth of cottonwood; but, in others, in moist and wet lands, the willow takes the lead. In perfectly dry ground, generally, it is otherwise, and yet 1 have now before me sec tiOn of a tree grown in Williard's Grove, at Larchwood, which is just such ground, showing growth ill four years of six and one-quarter inches in diameter, or one and One-half inches for each year. This, too, from a cut ting just one-fOurth of an inch in di- ameter when put in the ground. A young cottonwood of equal size, hay ing roots. seldom grows as fast; if put in as cutting, it is the general eX- perience that large majority of them perish, whilst the willow cuttings, if properly handled, almost always grow to be trees. But the most marked diff ference exists in the relative value of the two kinds of wood when grown.
 The White Willow was imported toI the United States from France in 1900, and Chambers Encyclopedia says it ' attains height of eighty feet and ' grows so rapidly that cutting has '' been known to become tree of thirty '' feet in ten years" MT. Fell remarks upon this as follows: We can beat that easily. In American soil, and in the locality already referred to, it has at tanned that height-and that, too, from small cuttIngs-in six years. That there may be no mistake about theI identity of the variety referred to, as the willow family is very numerous, the plantings at LarchwOOd are from cuttings taken by me from trees at this place, which trees are from cuttings brought by me from the Hlb- berd DavIs farm, near Chadd's Ford, Chester County, Penn. In that neigh borhood this tree has been propagated for the last seventy-Seven years, being for the purpose chiefly of powder out of the wood, at DupOnt's celebrated powder-mills in that vicinity. And in this connection I may further state that on the farm re- ferred to there are several strings of fence made of this willow, the rails of which were split more than forty years ago, and are still in a good state of At Mir. Williard's-al- ready referred to-is a piece of a rail taken from that farm by myself that lay in the fence over forty years, and moss-cOvered,. yet sound as a dollar, and silver one at hat, duly remOnetiZed. On the same string of fence 1 examined some stakes being the tips or upper cuts of the rees, and consequently all sap, the Ower ends of which had been in the ground thirteen consecutive years, yet sound enough to support double riders. To last thus, however, they had been seasoned before putting them into the ground, this being a necessary prepera- ion.
 Then again-returning to the cotton you cut it down, unless Iuite young, that is the end of it. On he contrary, the willow, like the chest nut, perpetuates itself indefinitely with ut any expense or effort of man. X will ow grove IS rich and perpetual in- ,Ome.