. Agriculture for southern schools. re that unlessthis waste is promptly stopped, in twenty-five years therewill be practically no forests east of the MississippiRiver. This misfortune can be prevented by every onesquickly realizing the true value of a tree. There is notime to be lost, for it takes most kinds of trees 50 to 100years to grow large enough to make the best lumber. The tree lives longer than any other form of vegetable 203 204 AGRICULTURE life. It is the patriarch among plants. The life of ayoung tree ought not to be taken for good farmer who makes firewood out o
. Agriculture for southern schools. re that unlessthis waste is promptly stopped, in twenty-five years therewill be practically no forests east of the MississippiRiver. This misfortune can be prevented by every onesquickly realizing the true value of a tree. There is notime to be lost, for it takes most kinds of trees 50 to 100years to grow large enough to make the best lumber. The tree lives longer than any other form of vegetable 203 204 AGRICULTURE life. It is the patriarch among plants. The life of ayoung tree ought not to be taken for good farmer who makes firewood out of saplings is de-stroying the property of his children. When trees matureor reach the point where their growth is very slow, theyshould be cut and used, so that they may yield a profitand make room for younger and more rapid-growing or young trees should be removed only wherethe growth is too thick. Forest fires. — The long-leaf or yellow pine tree may besix years old before it becomes one foot high. A single fire,. Courtesy Forest Serviee, U. S. Dept. Agr. Fig. 132. — Destructive Effects of Fire in a Forest of Long-leaf Pine started by some careless hunter or other thoughtless per-son to burn off the grass, may kill a thousand of theseand other valuable kinds of trees on every acre that itinvades (Fig. 132). Besides this, fires make the soil of FOREST TREES 205 the forest poorer by destroying the vegetable matter andthus retard the growth of the surviving trees. The oldmethod of boxing young pine trees in order to maketurpentine (as in Fig. 133) causes them to catch fire moreeasily than they otherwisewould. The new methodof collecting sap for tur-pentine, using cups andmetal gutters, is muchbetter for the tree (Fig. 134)- Uses of forests. — For-ests not only furnish lum-ber, material for paper,and scores of useful arti-cles, but they decreasefloods. When rain fallson the soil of a forestthat has never been burntover, it sinks into themellow soil and slowly
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