Norwich bulletin., 1922-05-26

days of the ubiquitous auto. The last of those trees were actually killed by the destructive greed of passing auto parties who not only stole the fruit by baskets full; but broke off hay rigging loads ot boughs in blossom time and serenely bore off their pillage.
 No, it would hardly due to go back to that old custom and set fruit trees by the wayside, unless the owner were pre- pared to camp under them, day and night, with shot gun and bull dog.
 But what about evergreens? They might be regarded as reasonably safe from passing depredators; they are usu- ally fast-growing trees; they tend to | an unusually graceful type of growth {; and many of them when mature and needing replacement, furnish valuable | lumber.
 There are the pines and the hemlocks and the frs and the spruces and the ced-
 ars to choose from, all growing natural 1 ly in New England soil All have characteristics in common, but with enough differences to fit varying condi- tions of soil or season. The white pine is probably the noblest of them all in stat
 ure and sturdy majesty. It is also one of the quickest growers. But 1t is "a 1 pitchy fellow, and it's dry fallen needles are highly infiammable. Hemlocks and
 spruces and frs are close seconds in l beauty and grace of growth. Even the l larch, (tamarack), though not an ever
 green, has a wonderfully aspiring habit of growth, if planted thickly enough to
 discourage branchiness.
 I am told by those who profess to know that New London county has less ever | greens, either native or planted, than any other county in the state" And I should
 be inclined to say as mere guess, that
 New London county has quite as much
 land fit only for growing evergreens on
 as any county in the statet Not only l is there room for heightening the at
 tractiveness of the county's highways by planting these conifers along their sides l there is opportunity for increasing the
 beauty of the landscape. by crowning its
 -tillable and scrubby hill-tops with
 evergreen groves.
 In addition to which arguments, effec i, tive with one class of farmers, there
 is the argument of profit, effective with
 all classes. While present high prices | of lumber may be directly due to profit
 eering by dealers, they are indirectly due
 to it's increasing scarcity, which has giv- en the prof1teers their opportunity. If l there wasn't single profteer between 1 Quoddy Hill and Puget Sound, the price
 of lumber would still be high and with 1 a tendency to rise. Therefore, the man with a sizeable and growing grove of white pines; say, has an investment which ] is increasing in value by leaps and i bounds. My own observations of white pine woods lead me to believe that they double in market value about every ten years. And experienced lumbermen, own CTS of peripatetic sawnills who go about the country buying up odd lots of standing timber wherever they can find it, tell me the same thing. This means that properly planted and managed white pine grove is paying ten per cent. per annum in development. That's pretty
 good return-to farmer man.
 When public spirit and love of land scape beauty and ten per cent. per annum unite in urging ree-planting, isn't the Argument a fairly good one?
 1 THE FARMER