cite these gentlemen to pieces of ground that are not pastured that this circle is increasing in. It begins in one corner of a piece of ground and will spread even where there is no pasture.

Mr. Schotzka-Certain trees will not grow on every kind of soil. In the old country we have to study hard to find out which is the right kind of soil for every tree. We can never say any. thing about what is the matter with a certain kind of tree, unless we examine the soil. We can suggest what may be, but we cannot say positively what is the matter. I suppose the soil is not fitted for that kind of tree.

J. N. Ames, Oregon - My experience is that poplar is a shortlived tree anyway. I have probably more timber than any other man in my town. I have probably seventy-five acres of young trees, and people are surprised that I do not cut it down and send it to market, but I thought it was better to send my boys to school and let my timber stand. The result is, I have some of the finest groves in the town, and my cattle have never run in them. I have no trouble with trees except the poplars, and they are shortlived, I find. I find that the black oak springs up where there were burr oak openings. That seems to be the coming timber. I think the people have been too careless altogether with regard to it. We talk about these things; we reason here together, but what does it amount to to talk these things over and never take any action? I have taxed myself with action, and if you were to see my wood lots you would say I was correct. A great many people say: Who cares for the next generation? I do. I want to leave an inheritance to my boys, so that they will thank me for my care and thought.

Mr. Huyck Have none of the black oaks died out in your grove of young timber?

Mr. Ames-No, sir; it is the poplars that die.

Geo. P. Peffer, Pewaukee - This gentleman was remarking about young oaks dying out. Where I am living we have second growth timber, that is, ever since 1864. It is twice now to my recollection that the black oak groves have more or less been dying out, but invariably on the south and southwest sides. Some of them had been pastured and some had not, but on close examination I

find that the forest leaves had been blown off by the west winds, and there was no snow in the fore part of winter, and the roots got killed by frost. We had the fall set in dry and it thawed out in the spring dry, no moisture during the winter, and as far as there was no mulch but leaves on the surface, invariably the trees, if they did not die right out, commenced to die from the tops down, and dwindled down for a year or so, and finally died. Fire blight also will have an effect in the same way. That is all I can say about it. As to setting out new trees in those places, I should take box elder, or maple, or white ash. Either of those trees will grow on those places. Black walnut is good.

William Gill, Brooklyn - My woods are getting somewhat similar to the woods of the gentleman from Sun Prairie, but I do not feel any alarm about it, because there is plenty of burr oak and white oak to occupy the ground. I simply concluded that black oaks had to get out of the way. I picked up in December more than enough black oaks to furnish me with wood all this winter, but there is plenty of white oaks and burr oaks to occupy the ground to better advantage than the black oaks ever would. I do not feel any alarm about their going. It is because there is not room for all; something has got to get out, and it is an illustration of the survival of the fittest.

Clinton Babbitt, Beloit I can give you, from experience, the way to save these black oaks. I have done that. I think it is better than to supply their place. You must remember that these black oaks have come down to us from a former generation - they were the associates of the Indian. They are very pleasant mixed in with a few burr oaks; they are in my opinion very beautiful. Now I have a number of acres in my front yard - no cattle, of course, are permitted to run among them. A great many years ago I discovered that one near the window where I wanted it for shade, began to decay and die down some ten feet. I cut it off, and it is as fine a tree to-day as you usually see. Now I believe that is the way to save the tree. Manure the land, put on ashes and as much of the leaf manure as possible, and mould and all that sort of thing, and I believe those trees can be saved. I cannot give any scientific reason for it, but I have tried it fifteen

years, and that tree still lives in spite of all that science has told me that they would not survive any longer than the Indian ; that it had got to go with civilization. I do not believe any such thing. I believe they will live if they are cut off from the top, and I believe it for the reason that the trees have lived.

Mr. Schotzka-There is no saving in sparing your old trees. A tree gets to a certain age just as we do, and then there is no more use to it. If you leave that tree standing you only lose capital. Cut them down as soon as the annual increase gets up to the average growth and put another one there. Then you have always got thrifty, growing trees and not old forests standing there only to fall back. At the same time we have to look after our mountains. The forests on the hills are the main thing. They are the lungs for the country. They spread good fresh air all over the country. The forests down in the valley cannot. There is unhealthy air if you keep forests there. Their proper place is on the mountains where nothing else can be raised, and by and by the forests will be brought to such an extent that the farmer can come up with the plow. No other crop will grow there but forests. But suppose you leave your mountains naked and heavy rain falls come; they will wash the good soil off and leave nothing but rocks there, and that piece of ground is lost for hundreds of years. Therefore leave the forests on the mountains where they are a beauty to the country and bring health to every man. There they do not disturb your income. There they are just where you want them. And put forests on every piece of ground you cannot use for anything else.

J. W. Wood, Baraboo - When I am at home, my daily occupation is chopping down forest trees; getting them out of the way. I have too many, and of course I must feel a little touched by these friends who advocate the planting of forests, because that is not my practice nor my experience. I would make one general assertion in reference to forest countries, and that is that a heavy timbered forest country is one always of slow settlement, where the people suffer a great many privations, and it takes a generation or two to get the country into good living order. That is the general history of timber land in our country. Where the

main body of the timber is cut off, and once in a while a patch preserved for a generation or two, that particular patch becomes of value; but if all or a great portion of the timber had been left, there would not be any particular value attached to it. I have acres now of timber land which will yield fifty or sixty cords of wood to the acre, and aside from the logs which I haul away. I would give an acre of it any time if it could be changed into an acre of good clover. That is my estimate of timber in a timber country. A piece of good timber in a prairie country, if it could be had, would be a good thing. It is an easy thing to talk about planting a forest. I do not think it is a possible thing to raise a genuine forest by planting. From the trees I cut I will oftentimes get forty or fifty feet of body, straight, without a limb. I have had white oaks and basswood from which I got sixty and sixty-four feet of wood fit for timber out of one tree.

I have seen a good many trees that have been planted, and I have seen them grow up to good size, but I have never seen one that would make a sawlog; and when we talk about planting trees for economical purposes other than firewood, I do not believe it is practicable. I judge that the process by which nature has done it is, that when the first growth sprung up to a reasona ble degree of height, perhaps to what our planted trees might grow, that then other trees would start, and, wanting the sunlight, would reach a little above the first, and so successive growths would keep on from generation to generation until we would have our native forest timber, which is very fine. But I would like to know if there is a man here that ever saw a planted tree that made a good, comely sawlog. I never did.

In reference to the black walnut, I remember, when I was a boy, hunting up the black walnut trees in the woods, and they would be fine large trees. We would get four or five logs out of a tree. I got nuts out of a tree and planted them when I was a boy. Those trees would grow large enough for a sawlog, and they have been bearing now for years. A few years ago I gathered some of the walnuts from the trees that I planted when I was a boy. I planted some of them and I have now got the sec ond crop in bearing. They are a fine tree, but they do not make

timber. Parts might make veneering or something of that kind, but there is nothing like the old original trees, and I think men will be disappointed that plant, and especially on poor land. The gentleman says there is poor land that ought to be devoted to timber. You notice the timber that grows on poor land and the timber is poor. If you want good timber for any purpose it must grow on good land. The better the land the better the timber. I have seen pines growing on land that would be pretty sandy for cultivation, but as a general thing the pine trees of better quality grow on good soil. You cannot grow good timber on poor soil. I think that a paradise of a country would be a prairie country which would admit of rapid settlement and good culture, and then let every man have an interest which would lead him to plant a patch of timber for shelter, and in a few years he can get his firewood, and everything would be better than it could be in two or three generations in a timber country.

Mr. Schotzka When we started to raise farm crops in this country, did not we find everything beautiful? Wheat was growing up to the ceiling. But where is that wheat? It is the same thing with timber. But we need more for the present than timber. At the same time, to raise wheat we must have timber to give us shelter and the humid atmosphere and protection and everything. Timber is not raised for agriculture alone, but for manufacturing purposes. But, gentlemen, this country will be populated more than it is at present. It will be populated so that every foot of land will be taken in. Should not we consider this point and put the forests to such uses, even if they do not grow much? Then we have forests anyhow and something to protect our agricultural products on those places, and not sow wheat until we have to cut down the forest in the low places, and the hills are naked and washed off.

Wood serves two purposes: first, to supply the wants of the country, the manufacturing and ship-building, and all kinds of business; and at the same time, from one-quarter to one-third of the whole country must be covered with wood to protect agriculture, and that is the main point of all. You have no idea how much timber is cut down. People see fifty or a hundred acres of