rday and today, has notoriously, thoughtlessly, and
disastrously failed both his children and himself. By all standards, he
should be the first-ranking tree planter of the land. As a matter of
fact, it is practically impossible to interest the average farmer at
all. State experiment stations and forestry departments make some effort
to stimulate interest in the planting of trees by furnishing seedling
stocks of forest trees at nominal prices and by issuing occasional
bulletins. However well intentioned and, within their limits, well done
these bulletins may be, the fact remains that in proportion to their
numbers, farmers are still not notable planters of trees. Perhaps one
reason for this failure is that most of the literature upon the subject
seems aimed at lumbermen, and not at farmers. As to the bulletins which
are aimed primarily at the farmer, examples of advice on forestry which
is given in these rather too specialized and somewhat near-sighted
publications are typically of the following kind: "Fence off the woodlot
and never pasture it," "Use your best land for field crops; your waste
land for trees." "You are interested in nuts? You can not have nuts and
timber, too."

It is evident that these rules are prepared by foresters--not farmers.
Is it any wonder that the inquiring farmer finds them rather
frustrating?

It should be remembered that practices which are valid and helpful in
the care of an already existing forest or woodlot where mature growth is
periodically harvested and where young sprouts are encouraged for
replenishment may be of little use in the management of an entirely new
planting of certain kinds of trees where cultivation, at least for a
time, is necessary. Deep-rooted trees, for example. Such rules have been
of little use to me in my own planting of American black walnuts upon an
Ohio farm. Indeed, to have followed them would have been disastrous.

My planting is not large. It is modest enough to be within the power of
nearly any farmer. It has been treated as a farmer would treat it,
without too much pampering. We now have a few more than three thousand
trees planted upon forty acres. Most of them are now fifteen years old.
Here are some of the things we have learned in fifteen years from our
trees:

1. Trees spaced 80 feet apart in good deep soil have not made as much
growth as seedling black walnut trees spaced 8 feet apart in rows 20
feet apart, also in good soil. However, these wider