land, or that which is unfit for agricultural purposes, and containing at least 2,700 trees to the acre, can compete for these prizes.

Second. For the best plantation of American white ash, of not less than five acres in extent, $600; for the next best, $400. Plantations originally of less than 5,000 trees to the acre, cannot compete for these prizes.

The following directions for tree-planting are condensed from the recommendations given by the trustees of the prize fund. For planting larch and pine, shallow furrows four feet apart should be run one way across the field. Then by planting in the furrows four feet apart each way, 2,720 plants will be required to the acre. On hilly, rocky land which cannot be plowed, it will be only necessary to open with a spade, holes large enough to admit the roots of the plants. The larch must be planted as early in the season as the ground can be worked. No other tree begins to grow so early, and too late planting is a common cause of failure. The Scotch and Corsican pines can be planted up to the first of May. The roots should be exposed to the wind and sun as little as possible. Carelessness in this particular is often fatal to the young plants. The trees should be carried to the field in bundles, covered with wet mats, and not be removed till they are required for planting. The roots should be carefully spread out in the holes or furrows prepared for them, and the soil worked among them with the hand, and finally pressed down with the foot. A cloudy or rainy day is especially favorable for this work. All young plantations must be protected from browsing animals, the greatest enemies, next to man, to young trees and the spread of forest growth.

If the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad reclaim the strip of land bordering their line through the "sand-blow," the example would be a benefaction to the State as a demonstration of what may be accomplished under the most unfavorable circumstances. If that desert can be reclaimed, surely all other barrens in Connecticut may be fertilized by forests. This enterprise will require time, faith, patience, and money. For the first four years the young trees may seem

to barely struggle between life and death, after which they are likely to grow rapidly. As this scheme will be regarded as chimerical by those who have not investigated the subject, I give below extracts from letters which I have received from practical tree-planters on Cape Cod and elsewhere, embodying interesting facts and practical suggestions.

John Doane, Orleans. (Mr. Doane, now eighty-six years of age, is the oldest living sylviculturist in Barnstable County.) I have planted one hundred acres in Orleans and seventy in Brewster. The whole plantation in Orleans is about five hundred acres; in Eastham seven hundred acres; in Wellfleet four hundred; in Truro six hundred; in Chatham, Harwich, Dennis, and Yarmouth, about four hundred each; and in Barnstable six hundred acres. In regard to the other towns on Cape Cod I have no definite information, though trees have been planted in many towns on the Cape. I have made a machine for planting the seed, that I have lent to the tree-planters in five of the neighboring towns. The land I have planted with pines was not worth over fifty cents per acre before planting, and I have sold some since covered with young pines, for fourteen dollars per acre. I consider it a good investment.

John Kenrick, South Orleans.--My experiments in tree-planting have been made on over a hundred acres now covered with trees from one to thirty-five years old, chiefly pitch pine. I am now trying Scotch and Corsican pine, and European larch. My first aim has been to cover my worn-out lands with beauty and verdure, and it has proved a successful and economic experiment. The seed of the pitch pine is worth from one to two dollars a pound, the higher price being in the end the cheapest. Fresh seeds, carefully gathered, are as sure to vegetate as corn, but obtained from seedsmen, they are very unreliable in germinating. European nurserymen take far greater pains in gathering forest tree seeds, and understand the art of curing them better than Americans. I have tried every method of tree-planting, transplanting trees from the smallest to those that are two feet high. This is a costly plan, but may be adopted when one wishes to save time, and desires a few trees as a wind break or otherwise. In transplanting trees immediately from my own nursery to the field, my favorite time is just as the buds begin to start in the spring. I have planted seeds both with a planter and by hand. On our light sands a man and boy will plant three acres in a day. Dropping six seeds in a hill, it will take about half a pound of seed to the acre. This is my favorite method, and is more satisfactory in results, though more costly than that of using the plow and planter. When the evergreens are about two feet high I would thin them, leaving one thrifty plant in each hill. I do not trim till they get large, and then cut off only the dead branches.

Tully Crosby, Brewster. In our small town about fifteen hundred acres of old waste land have been planted with pitch-pine. The Norway pine has not proved a success with us. Many old fields bought for fifty cents per acre, and planted with pine twenty-five years ago, are now worth from ten to twenty dollars an acre. The pines grow well for twenty-five or thirty years, and when cut off a second crop springs up immediately, and this crop does better than the first. The pitchpine takes root and grows on our barren beach sand where no soil is perceptible. Our people are now planting trees every year. I have recently planted twelve acres. Two years ago I cut off a lot planted thirty years since, and the land is now full of young pine trees growing from the seed scattered by the first growth. A man with a two-horse team can plant ten acres in a day, and three pounds of seed will do the whole.

E. Higgins, Eastham. Thirty years ago twenty acres of condemned tillage land, worth one dollar per acre, was planted with pitch pine. The present value of this land is fifteen dollars per acre. Prior to 1870, two hundred and twentyfive acres more of the same sort of land was thus planted, the present value of

which is eight dollars per acre. About one hundred and fifty acres of sandy land, utterly barren and not worth fifty cents to the acre, have been planted, the present value of which is seven dollars per acre.

John G. Thompson, North Truro. About six hundred and fifty acres have been planted in this town. The price of pitch-pine seed for the last few years has been one dollar and fifty cents per pound. Thirty years ago land in this town could be bought for twenty-five cents per acre for tree-planting; now the same kind of barren land sells for two dollars per acre for tree-planting. I find the expense of planting the pines to be two dollars and twenty-five cents per acre.

S. B. Phinney, Barnstable. Large tracts of worn-out lands in this county, that were worth comparatively nothing, have been planted from the seed of the pitchpine. These experiments have proved successful. I know of no way in which the light sandy lands in this section can be made so valuable as by planting them with the pitch-pine. Our experience proves that the cultivation of forest trees is feasible and profitable in New England seaport towns. In 1845 I planted in this town a ten-acre lot with pitch-pine seed, much as corn is planted, dropping three seeds in a hill and covering them with half an inch of soil. To-day many of these trees will girth more than a man's body. Hundreds of acres in this section are being planted annually.

J. E. Crane, Bridgewater. The most profitable tree we have planted in this region is the white pine, with which about two hundred acres have been planted on old worn-out pasture and light sandy soil. The cost of planting, that is, setting out young trees twelve to eighteen inches high, is about eight dollars per acre. Properly set out, scarcely one in fifty will fail. There is in this vicinity an acre that was set out thirty-five years ago, that has just yielded in cash for the wood and lumber, $350. On another acre, planted twenty-eight years ago, there is estimated to be from eighty to one hundred cords. These are unusual specimens, but fifty cords per acre in twenty-five years, is a low estimate on land natural to pine, and pine is the most valuable growth of wood in the Old Colony.

F. Collamore, Pembroke. Forty years since, Hon. Morrill Allen, "the model farmer" of Plymouth county, planted white pines which grew rapidly, and have proved very valuable for the manufacture of wooden packing-boxes. His example has been followed to a limited extent. Every one believes in the profit of it, but we are in a well-wooded region, and when a lot is cut off it soon starts up again.

Robert Douglas and Sons, Waukegan, Illinois. We have propagated the Euròpean larch for nearly twenty years. For a number of years, and until the financial collapse, we sowed over one thousand pounds of larch seeds annually, averaging five to seven thousand plants to the pound of seed. The larch grows finely and rapidly in the New England States, in northern Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. It grows nearly as fast, and makes more durable timber on poor lands than on very rich lands. There is no land so poor, except blowing sands, but that it will make a rapid growth after it is once fairly established. It is a tree adapted to a northern climate, and does not thrive in Kansas, southern Illinois, and south of Pennsylvania. We are growing the native cherry (Cerasus seratina) in large quantities, as it is healthy, transplants well, grows rapidly on land far from rich, and the timber is very valuable. We will send our catalogues, giving fuller information, to any party in Connecticut on application. The European larch should be planted as early as possible in the spring. It should never be planted on low wet ground. Set out early, no tree will bear transplanting better. Scotch pine and larch do well mixed. We recommend planting a few rows of the admixture on the margin of the plantation. When planted four feet by four, as we advise, they can be worked both ways with the cultivator for two or three years, when the branches will shade the ground so densely as to destroy the undergrowth. When the trees are received from the nursery, the boxes should be immediately unpacked and the roots dipped into a puddle made of rich, mellow soil about the thickness of paint, and kept in a shaded place till ready to plant, but the tops should be kept dry. Set the trees a little deeper than they stood in the nursery. After treading the earth firmly about the roots, draw a little loose earth up to the trees to prevent the surface from baking.

Francis Skinner, Brookline, a Trustee of Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture. I will receive and transmit orders for any number of trees for plantations in Connecticut to Douglas & Sons, Waukegan, Illinois. By arrangement with them, such orders transmitted through you are subject to fifteen per cent. discount from the catalogue prices, and such orders can be transmitted up to April 1st, except for European larch, for which the closing time will be March 1st. We are filling our Massachusetts orders from Douglas & Sons in preference to importing from England, as they are cheaper when ordered in large quantities, and the chances of their success far greater. American white ash, one or two years old and about one foot high, are from $3 to $5.50 per thousand; European larch from $4 to $8 per thousand. As this duty is undertaken solely from a desire to facilitate treeplanting, and not for the purpose of any personal gain, I cannot be held responsible in any way for the results.

A. W. Holley, Salisbury, Conn.-The consumption of wood in this and surrounding towns has been very great in supplying charcoal to our numerous iron works. Some of the mountains have been stripped of their trees three times within the last century. The second growth was rapid. Each subsequent one has been less vigorous and less rapid. Other varieties, aided by artificial means, such as seeding, placing cuttings, or transplanting the young trees, might soon render our mountains valuable again for the production of forests. Our landowners have not paid sufficient attention to the propagation of trees. The denudation of the mountains in Salisbury have lessened our streams. In the season of rain there is a more rapid rise and a greater flood than formerly when the forests were standing and the foliage and falling limbs lay quietly covering the earth beneath. Many smaller streams which flowed continuously through the entire season forty or fifty years ago, fail altogether in the summer, and the larger ones are proportionately diminished. Your suggestions in regard to fertilizing our sandy plains are practical, and should be carried out.

Experiments are now in progress to fix the dunes or sand hills which threaten the Suez Canal, by planting the maritime pine and other trees. Last summer I visited the celebrated forest of Fontainbleau, in France, which covers an area of sixty-four square miles. The soil of this wide tract is composed almost entirely of sand, and apparently as dry as the sand plains of Wallingford. Jules Claré, a student of forest science of world-wide fame, says: "The sand here forms ninety-eight per cent. of the earth, and it is almost without water; it would be a drifting desert but for the trees growing and artificially propagated upon it." What has been done with signal success at Fontainbleau shows the practicability of reclaiming the worst deserts that can be found in our State. Many other facts might be cited were it necessary, both from home and foreign fields, to prove the feasibility of this plan of reclaiming sterile lands. If one is to be commended who makes two blades of grass grow where but one grew before, how much more the farmer who makes forests thrive where nothing now grows.

SCHOOLS OF FORESTRY.

The experience of Europe long since demonstrated the value and necessity of "Forest Schools" so numerous on the Continent. As these institutions are unknown in this country, a detailed statement of their aims and character will not only be of interest, but I hope, will help towards the organization of similar schools in America. In connection with either of our Colleges, the endowment of two additional professorships, or even one at the outset, might inaugurate a Department of Forestry. As the applied mathematics and the sciences comprise so large a part of the curriculum of Forest Schools, a Forest Department could very easily and economically be annexed to the Sheffield Scientific School, where the existing cabinets, laboratories and philosophical apparatus could be utilized in forestral instruction. The endowment of such a department would prove a great benefaction to the State and to the country, opening new fields of investigation which would bear directly on the ultimate resources and permanent prosperity of the nation. The conclusions of foreign foresters, though confirmed by the broadest observations and experience in Europe, cannot all be wisely adopted in American Sylviculture. Difference in soil, climate and other conditions, may affect trees in regard to their rapidity of growth, health, durability of timber, texture, elasticity and grain of the wood, and many other qualities. These vital questions can be determined only by careful investigations carried on in each country. The Lombardy poplar, for example, sending out its almost upright laterals from the very ground all along its tall stem, grows beautifully in Italy, and is still a favorite with the Italians as of old with the Romans, who, it is said, gave it the name arbor populi. But in New England so many of its branches winterkill that it soon becomes an unsightly collection of dead limbs.

Another object of my recent visit to the leading schools of Forestry in Europe was to gather the practical plans and suggestions embodied in my paper on "Economic Tree Planting," first published in the Report of the Connecticut Board of Agriculture, and thus help reclaim our ex