The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1912-12-21
PRACTICAL FORESTRY
Natural and Artificial Forests-Pro-
fits of investments in Tree.

Forestry is the science of deriving
sure and fairly good revenue from
the production of valuable timber
trees on such hilly, rocky or sandy
| land as is unfit for field crops. The
| pine takes from the soil only a
| twelfth part of the mineral matter
that is required for field crops. Air
and light are its principal food.
The average net income from the
! German State forests is about three
per cent per annum. The average
value of the land containing the for
est is about $3.50 per acre. Much of
, the land is mountainous.
A normal forest is one from which
enough trees can be cut annually for
revenue, without imparing the CAPT
tai. The forest crop has this dis
advantage over field crops that it is
not absolutely necessary to cut it at
any particular time, but that the cut
ting can be at time that will best
suit the market. | we had a natural
or virgin forest of considerable ex-
tent, we should find in it trees of
various sizes and ages. In the
NliuDtSOAd 4NdliOlldl iOlCoAt DONNii7
Der, 1906, white pine was cut that
was 425 years old, six feet in diane
ter breast high, and which yielded
5000 board feet.) If our natural for
ests were handy to a permanent rail
road or the logs could be foated
from it by water to the sawmill, We
could every year cut, the more ma
ture trees, leave the younger ons to
grow, and in reasonable time bring it
into a normal forest. Usually, how
ever, natural forests are remote from
established lines of transportation,
and the lumberman who handles
them must construct temporary log
ging railroads which are taken up
when the timber has all been cut.
He has invested his money, expect
ing to get ii back soon with a profit
and cannot wait for trees to grow.
He usually cuts clean as he goes. He
cannot afford to practice forestry and
no reasonable person expects him to
do SO. 1t would take too long for ma
ture unaided to renew forest. Ma
tural reforestation has as good
chance in Germany as anywhere be-
ilC bhCAC uONG AiNNlN
But Grmany plants over hundred
thousand acres of forest annually.
If we were to start an artificial
pine forest it would be by planting
eedings-nursery grown trees-two
years ald four feet apart. requir-
ing at that rate 1922 seedlings per
acre If land we purpose using hap
pens TO be part of an abandoned
farm or is land from which natural
forest was cut twenty or thirty
years ago, probably per cent of the
area is already well stocked by ma
ture with valuable kinds of timber
of the area consists of rocks or wet
places that cannot be planted, so
that only 80 per cent of our area
will require to be planted.
Why should trees be planted as
close as four feet? To get the
ground shaded as soon as possible
to promote moisture and fertility;
also to promote height growth. In
crowded forest the shade couses the
trees to shed their lower limbs. II
is only in this way that long smooth
logs, free from knots, are produced
Every one has seen that tree in
the open grows too many branches
to make good timber In a forest
that is crowded when young, a natur
al thinning occurs as ii develops.
The weaker trees die out An aver
age acre of mixed woods in the
Black Forest of Germany which at
the age of twenty years contained
1860 trees. contained at the age of
forty years 1913 trees and at the age
of eighty years, SAG trees.
In a normal forest the average an
nual growth on third and fourth rate
land amounts to about 2S0 feet
board measure per acre. At that
rate we shall expect that our planted
forest OF red Norway and white
pine would in eighty vars contain
on an average $4,000 board feet per
acre of merchantable timber a
fairly conservative estimate.
have seen on my native farm i'm New
Hampshire white pin grow to dia-
meter of two feet breast high in
fifty years, bot it was ON fresh
loamy soil. such as s most favorable
for white pine.
We can assume that the expense
oi p'8nung per acre VIII be as
follows Cost OF land S. trees S.
planting. $40. total E-l being the cap
ft0l invested B one acre OF i0reaJ
This sum - g per cent compound
interest win amount .n eighty years
90 S2-3f4 The price of pine lump
age in thH country has rca.ad n