The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-08-04

NE trunks that grew in the neighborhood of Menomenee.
 The Michigan establishments for the making of poles by wholesale are simi- lar to those in other sections of the United States and in Canada, but the pole-making industry is not confined to these great yards. where the trees are literally handled by the thousands. In various sections of the United States the business of making poles on small scale adds to the revenues of the farm CTS. The building of long-distance and local telephone systems the country over has opened new market to the product of the woodiot upon the farm.
 SUGGESTIONS TO FARMERS.
 There would seem to be no reason why people who own farms anywhere in the Appalachian regions in this country should not make a portion of their lands very valuable through the planting of chestnut trees. No form of forestry is destined to be more profita- ble in the future than this. The ordi- nary chestnut, castanea dentata, of our eastern mountain slopes, is one of the most important in the eyes of the look CTS. No other, it may be said, grows more rapidly or to a greater height It is distributed everywhere in a dis trict bounded by line beginning in Maine, passing west to Lake Ontario and Michigan, then extending south through Kentucky and Tennessee to central Alabama and Mississippi, and thence to the Atlantic Wherever there is glacial drift the chestnut thrives well and grows to a large size, especial ly in the middle Atlantic states. The usefulness of chestnut wood to the tel ephone and telegraph companies is due to the large amount of tannic acid it contains, making it very durable when in contact with the soil.
 Keeping pace with the demand for wood suitable for poles is the increas- ing need of ties for the tracks of the great steam and electric railway sys- tems of the country. While the officers of the United States government are studying forestry on the somple plots in the Maine woods, the Pennsylvania railroad company, under the direction of State Forestry Commissioner Roth rock, has begun the work of planting locust trees in a large reservation at Conewago, from which the company ex- poets to get about five million ties with in the next fifty years.
 THE KANSAS EXPERIMENT.
 The Kansas City, Fort Scott and Memphis railroad is another company which has taken steps to supply it's needs in the matter of timber. In a tract of four hundred acres near Dar- lington, Kas., hardy catalpas, suitable for posts, poles and ties, were set out between 1878 and 1884. Since then the growth of trees has been carefully tended and studied and accurate ac- counts kept of their cost and value. The financial exhibit shows that the planting and tending have cost to date s124,50 per acre, while the gross value at present is estimated at $3911.21 per acre. Allowing six per cent. compound interest on the investment, there is left a clear profit of $1SS.19 per acre. This experience of railroad corporation is an object lesson to farmers and land owners.
 Trees mature slowly, but their growth does not interfere with work on near-by lands devoted to the raising of ordinary farm crops, and as the trees steadily increase in size and approach maturity they will bring to their owner the satisfaction of knowing that they represent the development of a new source of income which will be perma- #nent, for constant planting replaces the trees sent to market. And in addition there will be the reasonable assurance that the product is likely to increase rather than decrease in value with the passing of the years.