The Baltimore County union, the Towson news., 1909-09-11
PROFIT IN TREE FARMING.
Government Advice Which Will Help
Owners of Forest Lands.

Government Advice Which Will Help
Owners of Forest Lands.
Unused lands in any part of the
United States can be made to produce
from Sc to 500 an acre, according to a
recent forestry report by the govern
ment.
In the report the interests of the
country in general are considered, and
In this light tree growers are advised
to keep their trees uncut until they are
of mature size. plantations of red
cedar twenty-five years sold,' says one
report, 'have netted $300.54 an acre.
European Iarch, used for telephone or
fence posts, will net from 5000 to 1925
an acre at the age of twenty-five years.
White pine at the ripe age of forty
years will produce $500 an acre as un-
cut timber" while other woods more
than twenty years of age bring prices
that compare favorably with these.
But to the man who is expecting that
in ten or fifteen years his tree crop
will reach a salable value the figures
Of the national forest service are bit
out of reach. Yet to that individual
hope is offered in the announcement
that there are uses and even good
prices paid for trees which range from
the tender age of six years up ana
that the demand for these slender
striplings is growing greater each year.
An example of this lies in the match
industry alone This line of manufac-
ture has nearly all been merged into
great trust which annually purchases
at a good figure thousands of acres of
white pine trees anywhere from Maine
to California. 1t buys these as uncut
timber in size from six inches up and
after clearing the tract moves on to its
next forest. In the manufacture OF
barrel slaves and hoops trees of almost
any tough, flexible wood are used from
the ages of four to fifteen years, while
any straight young trees of ten years
will make salable flag or tent poles.
Young alders, poplars and willows
of from ten to fifteen years serve man.
kind in the manufacture of gunpowder,
while the prolific beech and maple,
from six inches in diameter upward,
can be used in the manufacture of
wood alcohol, for which there is an
enormously increasing demand all over
the country Furniture manufacturers,
always on the outlook for wood with
a fine grain, will take birch, cherry,
walnut. ETC., not large enough to be
used in making parts of house furnish
ings for use as veneer. Never before
in the history of the United States has
so much wood been used in the manu-
facture of ornaments and toys as is
now being used for that purpose, and
thousands Of feet Of spruce are en-
ployed by manufacturers of sleighs and
wagons.
In some parts of New York and
Pennsylvania large quantities of small
timber are used in wood distillation
plants for the production of acid, while
all over the country small timber is
used for the manufacture of charcoal.
Small sizes Of timber, particularly the
spruce of New England, is used in the
pulp mills where paper and other wood
pulp products are manufactured. Then.
again, many small trees are bought
for the manufacture of toothpicks,
while in the mining country of Penn
sylvania and other coal producing
states thousands of "sprags" are pur-
chased to serve their peculiar purpose.
This is to check the speed of the mule
carts as they go rapidly down the steep
grade of the mines by being thrown
beneath the wheels.
These are only few of the hundreds
of uses to which young timber may be
put if it is near enough to a market
to be sold.