Arizona republican., 1918-04-15

upland" Walnut trees were more numerous in the second bottom and upland sections than in the valuable bottom regions. In almost any woods it was not unusual to find two three or dozen large walnut trees to the acre. forty years How many there might have been the time of settlement, say between 1912 and 1925 it hard to say, but there must have been many
 The walnut and the beautiful d-cherry tree to have been the first victims ravages of the settlers who in their hurry enclose ings converted these trees into fence rails These woods easily split rail lengths any others except oak ash and easily cut than either of these latter named woods. On a re- cent visit to that part of the country the writer found ancient rails of walnut probably cut fifty or seventy five years ago.
 Many walnut trees and cherry trees fell before the 'coon-hunter. Raccoons more frequently took refuge in these trees perhaps not because they be- lieved them to be asylums than other of less valuable wood but because their rougher bark made them easier of ascent But a hunter would spend couple of hours cutting down huge tree for fftycent pelt and the trunk might lie for years unless the owner had the time felt need of converting it into fence rails or perhaps he it to a sawml to be converted into lumber for the building of a cowshed or pig pen.
 The value of walnut began to be appreciated in the late sixties but it until fifteen or twenty
 
 to excite the farmers and them conserving that wood. Now and then farmer would sell a tree for s25 prices kept rising until now and then buyers would spread epidemic of paralysis in the rural communities by paying much $10O for a good sized walnut tree. In the meantime other men trav- eed through the country looking for walnut stumps. At first farmers glad let them remove the stumps from fields for nothing. Later the stumps took value and from which the trees had been cut generation or two before-perhaps the in- terior had routed away-were sold from s5 to s25 It from the lower parts of these stumps or the roots of them that the beautiful curly walnut was ob tained
 There Ne not many black walnut trees in that part of the country. There still many walnut growing mostly in the fields trees more prolific in fruit They have large spreading branches but they lack the noble bolls of the black walnut which grew to a height of seventy-five or eighty feet Only of this inferior tree is black or dark -colored.
 For time the prices of land in that region ranged from $75 to $1OO an acre for bottom land: $50 to $75 for and from s35 to $50 for upland. Some of the last named "worn-out" land was sold in the eighties for as low $15 an acre. But now, thanks to the advance that has been made in agriculture within the last generation there IS no more worn -out land, or s15 land in that part of the country. has all restored but the wal nut trees have not been.
 If the lands of the second bottom or the upland had not been denuded of the walnut trees; or even If those that had been left there late late sixties had been allowed to stand, much of that would now be worth for the trees alone as much as s1,O0O an acre. But then hindsght, though of no value asset and not convertible into cash has always been much clearer than foresight
 broad trail of waste marks the progress of the white man across the whole country The land and all that was in it too rich for his blood It made him reckless and improvdent It hardly more than generation since he turned conservation and even in that his carelessness ooseness of method have been the chief characteristics of his attempts at self reformation. But he is improving The necessities the war is imposing upon him will go great way toward completing his education as a conseryationis
 TLa