The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1897-01-01

ySd1o, says Ill OdI-
den and Forest:
Mr.. Lyman has a growth of
white pine trees two-thirds Of an
acre in extent, SO to IS years
of age, which he has thinned, so
that in 1894 only LAG trees remained, or
223 to the acre. Most Of his trees are
over 10 inches in diameter, at least 16
OF them are over IA inches, and the best
measured 22.2 inches, the height be-
Ing 20 to 80 feet. The calculated vol
m corresponds to a production of
7,185 cubic feet of wood an acre,
which, under very careful practice,
might cut 10000 board measure.
In view of the vast value and i'm
portance of the white pine and the
rapfdity with which a timber crop of it
car be grown, even on land deemed al
most worthless, l hove been expert
menting on a small scale to ascertain
its rate of growth ans the best treat
ment of the trees while growing. II
this study I have been disappointed at
finding SO little aid from books. I want
to find out how to grow a crop of tim
Der on poor, cheap land as we'll as the
best farmers in the corn belt can grow
a crop of corn. I have some 400 acres
of mixed growth from % to 35 years Of
age, and most of this has been left to
nature. I have thinned some IL acres
of small white pines and pruned some
Of them.
The little grove referred to by Mr..
Fernow is upon a deserted farm which
I bought in January, 1870, and, as I re-
member, the first time I noticed it was
a few years later. The trees are close
by the highway, less than six miles
from the large village of Pennington,
less than a mile and a half from a rail-
road station, and fourteen, twenty and
twenty-five miles respectively from the
cities of Rochester, Somersworth and
Dover, yet this grove with it's 108
square rods of land could not probably
have been sold at that time for much, if
any, over one dollar, and, perhaps, for
not over fifty cents. A man thinned
the trees, receiving the Trimmings as
pay, and they made stakes, kindling
wood, and, perhaps, a few light top
poles for fence. They ought to have
been thinned earlier. They were then
left either five or seven years, which
was too long, before they were thinned
again. They have been %irregularly
thinned from time to time since, and
the pruning has been equally irregular.
Standing more than 40 miles from my
home, they have not been as we'll cared
for as they ought to have been. They
have no limbs within 20 feet of the
ground, and the first 20 feet from the
ground will make very good boards,
worth, if cut now, at least twice the
price of inch-thick box boards. The
larger these trees become the more
clear lumber there will be in them, and
its value per foot will increase with
their size. I have other young pines on
the same farm which / have pruned so
that the logs from the first 20 feet of
their bodies will be perfectly free of
knots to within two inches Of their
hearts, and these knots will be SO small,
free from blackness and sound, that
they will scarcely be noticed in the
boards.
The cost Of the several prunings of
each tree will, I Judge from my exper-
fence, amount to about one and a half
cents. It would be a fast average
growth with properly thinned pines if
they were two feet in diameter at rs