Weekly journal-miner., 1910-01-05
APPROPRIATENESS SHOULD STUDY
 FORESTRY
CFrom Tuesdays DaIlyl

From Tuesdays Dailyl
 Every farmer in Arizona should be forester. Every farmer should have his individual forests reserve. Whether it consists of acres, whether it is a corner wood lot, or whether it is just a few trees, by all means the trees should be there.
 Many a farmer gets his fuel sup ply from woodland patch which he has planted and owns; others have planted for shade and beauty; buu few have had the foresight to plant trees for any other purpose.
 Every farmer who is willing to take a little time may easily raise his own fence posts, necessary and expensive. In planting, the trees should be chosen which will mature the soonest and which will bring the greatest returns to him and to his property. That tree in the southwest is eucalyptus.
 The present price demanded for fence posts is 20 to 30 cents each, and the rancher has to pay the price or go feneeless-unless he has grow ing trees which will supply him with posts.
 The eucalyptus has been tested and proved to furnish a superior wood which because of its strength and hardness, is durable both below and above ground. There is hardly a farmer or rancher in the southwest but what has a corner of land here and there standing idle, and which with a little painstaking might be planted to eucalyptus. In return for the soil which it appro- priates, eucalyptus will supply, under systematic cutting, all of the posts needed for the present and for the generations to come. The best cuts can be taken for posts and the rest utilized for fuel
 It has been estimated that from ten to fifteen posts can be cut from eucalyptus tree of marketable age, ten years old, the average Il inches in diameter and 92 feet in height. But 1t is not necessary to wait for the trees to grow to maturity. In four or five years the eucalyptus is ready to cut for posts, each tree averaging at that age two posts.
 If from the sprouts that the old trunk almost immediately sends forth one is allowed to grow, the new tree will yield two posts in from three to four years; and if two or three sprouts are left, each will average two posts in from four to five years time. In ten years time the first, second and third growths will have produced eight posts.
 It is advantageous to the farmer to utilize the young trees for posts as he can do the cutting and pre- pairing himself with slight expense to what it would cost to hire the cutters to prepare the larger trees for posts. He will not get the maximum returns for the trees that he could if he were plant ing for commercial timber, but to produce his own fence posts, when timber is scarce and expensive, takes l large item off the expense list.
 The rancher who has a grazing -raet should plant eucalyptus along the edges. If he owns a barren hillside, he should elothe it with eucalyptus trees. If he has an agri- cultural spot lying idle, there is no better purpose to which it could be put than the growing of eucalyptus .rees. He should plant eucalyptus oy the wayside, if there is a patch | 'f soil in which nothing else will yrow, try eucalyptus as an expert nent.
 Wherever these trees are started | growing, they will produce them ielves indefinitely.
 If the farmer utilizes waste land, | with poor soil and little or no water, here is a possibility that the trees will grow, for eucalyptus has been lnown to grow under such eondi- ions; but deep loam soil and a good iupply of water, such as will be leeded for any other crop, is none oo good to set aside for eucalyptus rowing.