Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1886 [PAGE 273]

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265 considerable undergrowth, consisting for the most part of shadeloving weeds and grasses, but also various shrubs and climbing: vines. While these trees make a rapid growth, and ultimately obtain great size, it can hardly be claimed for them that they stand at the head of the list for timber purposes. The wood of old, well grown trees is exceedingly valuable. But it is only the wood of large trunks that commands high prices. That of young trees is not specially prized for anything. From seventy-<five to a hundred years is not too great an estimate for the time required for the development of this tree into a product of high commercial value, and who can count upon the relative value of kinds of woods a century hence? Then these large trees demand a large area in which to reach the majestic proportions of commercial prominence. As shelter belts we have better trees, and for furnishing the miscellaneous purposes of farm supplies other kinds will be first selected. I do not, however, wish to cast any discredit upon this noble tree—the most prominent representative abroad of our North American forests. Its lofty, feathery crown is worthily worn, and, no doubt, in judicious mixed planting for timber, this regal tree should have its place. Box_ ELDER, (Negundo aceroicles). The seed was planted in the fall; of 18/6 thickly in rows four feet apart, where the trees were t o grow. The next spring the rows were thinned with the hoe, so as to leave the seedlings at first one foot apart. Two years later every other tree was removed, usually for transplanting. Alternate rowswere dug for planting a part at a time as the trees were wanted from 1881 to 1884. During this time the remaining rows were also thinned to about four feet between trees. The area is about onefourth of an acre in a long strip adjoining the wTet portion planted with Larch. A part of the ground is very wet in the first part of the season; one end is moderately well drained. The trees have done excellently well throughout, and the block has cost less in proportion to size or number of trees than any other. The first year cultivation was thoroughly kept up during the season, and the second year double shovel plows were run in the rows three or four times. After this the shade was sufficient to keep down the weeds, and from that time to the present the ground has been perfectly free from any kind of undergrowth. , The trees are straight, tall and slender, with clean trunks high above one's head, and they are remarkably uniform in size for such close growth. The present average size (ten years from seed) is thirty-one feet two inches in height, and sixteen and one-half inches in circumference of trunk. This plantation is in appearance very excellent, and were the wood worth anything most valuable results might be anticipated. The record is worth consulting in regard t o groves and belts for shelter. BUTTERNUT, (Juglans cinerca). The nuts were planted in nursery rows early in the spring of 1869, and when the seedlings were transplanted two years afterward they were fifteen to twenty inches high. Niuety-nine per cent, survived and made an average growth t h e first season of six inches. At the end of the second year (four years.