78
��FOREST VEGETATION IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
��grows best in alluvial soil, and is the most extensively planted for shade and ornament of all trees, unless, perhaps, the sugar-maple.
Butternuts also prefer the borders of streams, and in the valley of the Petni- gewasset extend northward to the base of the mountains. Hickories are most common in the Lower Merrimack Val- ley, the shell-bark extending northward to the vicinity of Lake Winnipiseogee. Basswood is found mostly on the high- lands, but is not very common. The black cherry is found throughout the State, usually most common near streams. Two species of poplar are com- mon ; the first a small tree, very common in light soil, and often springing in great abundance where woodland has been cleared away. The other, the black pop- lar, may be a large tree.
The Hon. Levi Bartlett of New Hamp- shire has given in the result of his expe- rience, an interesting illustration of the profits that might be realized from tree- planting in this State, covering a period of about fifty years. A tract had been cleared and thoroughly burned over in a very dry season, about the year 1800. It immediately seeded itself with white and Norway pines, and about twenty-five years after came into his possession. He at once thinned out the growth on about two acres, taking over half of the small- est trees, the fuel much more than paying the expense of clearing off. From that time nothing was done with the lot for the next twenty-five years — having sold it, however, during that time. Upon ex- amining it he found that, by a careful es- timate, the lot which had been thinned was worth at least a third more per acre than the rest which had been left. It was worth at that time at least $100 an acre. He thought that had the land been judiciously thinned yearly, enough would have been obtained to have paid the taxes and interest on the purchase,
��above the cost of cutting and drawing out, besides bringing the whole tract up to the value of the two acres which had been thinned out. At the time when this part was thinned (twenty-five years from the seed) he took a few of the tall- est, about eight inches on the stump, and forty to fifty feet high, and hewed on one side for rafters for a shed. At the next twenty-five years (fifty from the seed) he and the owner estimated that the trees left on the two acres would av- erage six or eight feet apart. They were mostly Norway pine, ten to twenty inches in diameter, and eighty to a hun- dred feet high. He was greatly sur- prised, seven or eight years after, to see the increase of growth, especially the two acres thinned thirty years before. The owner had done nothing, except oc- casionally cutting a few dead trees. It was now the opinion of both that the portion thinned out was worth twice as much as the other ; not, however, that there was twice the amount of wood on the thinned portion, but from the extra size and length of the trees, and their en- hanced value for boards, logs and tim- ber. There were hundreds of Norway and white pines that could be hewed or sawed into square timber, from forty to fifty feet in length, suitable for the frames of large houses, barns and other buildings. There were some dead trees on the two acres thinned at an early day, but they were only small trees shaded out by the large ones. On the part left to nature's thinning there was a vastly greater number of dead trees — many of them fallen and nearly worthless. Of the dead trees standing, cords might be cut, well dried, and excellent for fuel. Estimates were made that this woodland would yield 350 cords of wood, or 150,- 000 feet of lumber per acre. Allowing that these were too large, the real amount must have brought a very large profit on the investment.
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