Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1886 [PAGE 284]

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278 sloping gently to the south, and at least one-half of the area is, in spring time and often in the early part of summer, too wet for the best results of tillage. The black soil is from one to two feet in depth, underlaid with rather stiff clay. The trees were planted when twelve to fifteen indies high, four feet apart each way. Of nearly 3,000 of these small trees planted May 4th, 1872, two-thirds died during the summer, while of similar seedlings of Norway Spruce, planted in same way, the same day, on similar soil, not above two per cent. died. The season was a dry one, but it is not easy to explain this vastly greater mortality of the Pines, except as we take account of the nature of the tree. It is comparatively a hard one to successfully transplant ; the roots are soft and naked, or furnished with few small fibres. These seedlings were collected in early spring, 1869, and put into close nursery rows, and shaded with lath frames. Here about eight per cent, died the first year. For experiment the shade was omitted in the case of a few hundred seedlings, and of these thirty-five per cent. died. Having grown in the nursery three years, they were deemed in good condition for transplanting. Knowing the necessity of careful handling, no effort was spared, from the digging in the nursery to setting in permanent place, to secure successful results. Throughout the season the soil was kept in good state of tilth by frequent cultivation. In the following spring (1873) the vacant spaces were filled from the nursery, and again in 1874 trees were set where needed. In this way the plantation was almost perfectly started, ?nd from the first the living trees have done exceedingly well upon the lower and wetter part of the ground, as upon that of dryer condition. At the lowest part standing water would be iound in May, and perhaps in June, within two or three feet from the surface, and for a while, usually in the spring, the surface soil itself was soft and mucky. Yet even here the trees have succeeded admirably. Very few trees have died from any cause since they began their growth in their present position. They are now remarkably healthy and vigorous, and the plantation vies with that of the Larch in beauty and prospective value. Cultivation was kept up in thorough manner for three years. Daring the fourth, fifth, and sixth years the weeds were mowed, but little tillage was practiced, mostly because the ground was too wet in the earlv part of the season. In the winter of 1877-8 the alternate rows were cut down, otherwise no pruning or thinning has been done. The trees now average twenty-four feet and nine inches in height, and seventeen inches in circumference of trunk. The ground beneath is thickly covered with the fallen leaves, and strewn with decaying branches, but otherwise clean and clear from undergrowths of any kind. The dead branches, still holding their place on the trunks, and interlaced through and through, prevent one's passage among the trees, except as a way is picked out in the more open places. The stems are straight, and remarkably uniform in size, and still more so in height. (Abies excelsa.) A large lot of small seedlings were put in close nursery rows in the spring of 1870, whence they were transplanted two years later,

NOBWAY SPRUCE,