The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1910-05-06
"THE SUDDEN sAwLoG. PAYS.
Profit in Growing the Norway Poplar
in the West,

western lumberman who have been
looking for tree that would get
move on itself and turn out lumber
quickly are adopting the view of the
tree growers that the desired variety
mas been found in the Norway pop
lar, Known in the trade now as the
sudden sawlog." The Norway poplar
promises to be to the North what the
eucalyptus is to the South
Its rapidity of growth is remark
able. Two-year-old trees at the ex-
periments station at York, Neb., are
sixteen feet in height and three in
ches through at the base, while in
Minnesota and the Dakotas, where
they have been experimental with
for years, a fourteen-year-old tree
will average 50 feet in height and II
inches in diameter They make good
sawlogs at twelve and thirteen years
This is due to the fact that, unlike
many others, the tree does not waste
its energy in side limbs. 1t retains
its size as it mounts upward and thus
produces more lumber material than
any other 1t outgrows the cotton
wood and the Carolina and Asiatic
poplars, and in a succession of dry
years will survive them all because
it has root system about twice as
large.
A vigorous tree must have a great
deal of leaf surface The Norway
poplar, instead of a multitude of
small leaves, has immense ones. On
healthy tree they will be found
nearly a foot long from the end of
the stem to the apex, and nine in
ches broad. They wave like fans in
the breeze.
The trees until few years ago
have been rare, but the experiments
have resulted so satisfactorily that
in the West and Northwest they have
been planted by thousands They
grow readily from cuttings and this
makes it possible to multiply the
supply rapidly.
The Norway poplar never saw
Norway. 1t gets its name from the
fact that it was found growing sue
cessfully among the Norwegian set
Elements of Minnesota
Investigation shows that about
thirty years ago Minnesota man
brought over a lot of poplars from
Russia and Siberia Most OF them
proved worthless, but one of them
brought from Siberia proved to be a
very rapid grower. Cuttings from it
were sent to various parts of the
west, among them the Norwegian
settlements.
1t was not until five years ago that
Tho af
covered that it was the timber max
ing tree they had been looking for
From cuttings the size of lead pen
ell trees nine feet tall have been
raised the same year they were
planted and fence posts have been cut
from four-year-old trees that meas
ured 8 inches in circumference 3
feet from the ground.
recent demonstration in lumber
raising with the Norway poplar,
made before the Minnesota State
Horticultural Society, was looked up
on as remarkable. The demonstrator
took tree that he had grown on his
farm and had it sawed into lumber.
He exhibited a board sawed from a
nine-year-old tree from which he had
made 81 feet of inch boards, which
at S25 thousand feet makes S2.02 a
tree. while from tree of the same
variety fifteen years old he made
216 feet of boards, making the value
of the tree S5.40. A twenty-year-old
sawed up over 800 feet, or a little
over IS for a tree.
Planted on hundred dollar land
&c io
able investment. If the trees are
planted five feet apart in the row and
the rows made ten feet apart it is
possibl eto get 500 trees on an acre
AS matter of fact they can and do
grow thicker than that
Eight hundred nine-year-old trees
at S2.02 a tree comes to $1,616 an
acre, and 500 fifteen-year-old trees
at $40 each to s4,32O an acre.
The only difficulty is that the average
American wants to reap his harvest
the same year he plants, and sitting
down for twenty years for trees to
grow into a forest and a fortune does
not appeal to the impatient.
IF man to-day would take ten
acres and plant it to the sudden saw
log" says c. S. Harrison, Nebraska
expert, lin twenty years he could
clean up nearly $4,000 The 5000
cuttings necessary to make the start
would cost about S175.
Eliminating from the calculation
the probable fact that If he paid 500
fl acre now for his land its increase
value alone with neighboring
.Cs would care for the loss on his
yea-ment due to no yearly returns
'Jming in, it is the best kind Of
~ c-tment, If we say that at the
END of ten years his land has cost
him 5000 an acre and at the end of
twenty years $400 an acre, or $4,000
altogether, he will have standing
thereon trees to the value, comput-
ing lumber at its present price of
from $4,000 to $4,000.