The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1905-07-01
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1t is hardly worth while to fool away
any time or money sending for ca.
talpa seeds. There are a score OF
better and more profitable trees in
digenous to Florida which might be
used by those who are DESTROYS of go
ing into tree culture. The live oak
is a sample. If it's acorns are planted
IN suitable soil and kept moist for a
period during the winter months they
will sprout and grow in the spring.
They can be lifted with a shovel, in
Guiding a liberal allowance of soil and
placed In carefully titled ground four
feet distance between rows and be.
tween sprouts in the row. Watered
when thus planted, they will grow to
height exceeding a foot during the
season. They should be cultivated
carefully and kept free of grass and
weeds. In a few years they will be
tall, straight, symmetrical and hand
some, with value doubling that of
the catalpa or perhaps any other tree.
Four feet apart each way is too close
Sor permanent growth, so the crooked
or distorted specimens, or the weakly
growers can be cut out. The grove
may be thinne0 for use of poles about
the farm as needed until eight feet
separates every tree from its nearest
neighbors. In five years from the
planting the saplings will furnish ex-
cellent stovewood when they need to
be thinned. and from that age forward
they grow almost as rapidly as the
water oak, soon becoming valuable
timber.
Those who are impressed by these
facts and wish to try the experiment
win find it easy. The main point is
not to undertake too large a grove A
quarter or half acre is as much as the
average farmer will faithfully attend
to. And one thing we have noticed
about timber culture. Large tracts
never pay In proportion to small ones
Just as the man with a dozen orange
trees about his house gets eight or ten
dollars every year from each of them
while the man with thousand is sat
isfied with two or three dollars apiece,
so the man with a quarter or half
acre of forest trees gets better results.
There Is so much care and attention
necessary to successful tree culture
that people invariably spread it out
too thin if they try to cover much ter
ritory.
The handling of an acre of timber
or of becans is a much larger under
taking than most people think it, but
in the long run It pays if properly
done The only reason We advocate
the limitation of tree culture to such
small area is that the cultivation SO
frequently falls by the wayside. The
hoofs Of a wandering COW in a planta-
ton of yearling trees will do dis.
heartening amount of damage and a
vagrant razorback can cancel its own
value every five minutes it is allowed
in the Enclosure with the young
growth. Hence the necessity that in.
FAINT groves should be carefully and
separately fenced and kept to them.
selves. A wild potato vine. If allowed
TO go unchecked, will wind around and
over and bend down and ruin half
dozen infantile trees. So that pains
and vigilance are the price to be paid
/ for trees of ones own culture. Still
a small grove will prove both pleas.
ant and profitable venture. One thing
| IS sure: Acorns do not cost anything
and a half hour a week is not much
| time to devote to the miniature grove
1 It wiz pay-whether the tree adopted
is any one of half dozen varieties OF
oak or pine Or hickory.