The other eight bushels had been planted near a roadside and close to some farm buildings. The constant human activity thereabouts probably made the squirrels less bold, for although they carried off at least a bushel of walnuts, about two thousand seedlings grew. I had planted these too close together and as the trees developed they became so crowded that many died. The remaining seedlings supplied me with root-stocks for experimental work which proved very valuable.
I have always suspected the squirrels of having been responsible for the fact that my first attempt to grow hickory seedlings was unsuccessful. I planted a quart of these nuts and not one plant came up. No doubt the squirrels dug them up as soon as I planted them and probably they enjoyed the flavor as much as I always have.
In 1924 I ordered one hundred small beechnut trees, Fagus ferruginea, from the Sturgeon Bay Nurseries at Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. The company was very generous and sent me three hundred of them. I planted these trees in a heavy clay soil with limestone running near the surface. They grew well the first year, except that there was heavy mortality during cold weather. In working with these trees my lack of experience and horticultural knowledge was against me. They could not tolerate the soil and within three years they were all dead.
To give variety to the landscape at my farm, I planted several other kinds of trees. Among these were Kentucky coffee-trees which have beautiful bronze foliage in the spring and honey locusts. I planted five hundred Douglas fir but unfortunately, I put these deep in the woods among heavy timber where they were so shaded that only a few lived. Later, I moved the surviving fir trees into an open field where they still flourish. About two hundred fifty pines of mixed varieties—white, Norway and jack—that I planted in the woods, also died.
I decided, then, that evergreens might do better if they were planted from seeds. I followed instructions in James W. Toumey's "Seeding and Planting in the Practice of Forestry," in bed culture and spot seeding. In the latter one tears off the sod in favorable places and throws seed on the unprotected ground. In doing this, I ignored the natural requirements of forest practice which call for half-shade during the first two to three years of growth. Thousands of seedlings sprouted but they all died either from disease or from attacks by cows and sheep. One should never attempt to raise trees and stock in the same field.
Because of these misfortunes, I determined to study the growth of evergreens. I invested in such necessary equipment as frames and lath screening. Better equipped with both information and material, I grew thousands of evergreen trees. Among the varieties of pine were:
| native White Pine | —Pinus strobus |
| Norway pine | —Pinus silvestrus |
| Mugho pine | —Pinus pumila montana |
| sugar pine | —Pinus Lambertiana (not hardy in northern Wisconsin) |
| Swiss stone | —Pinus cembra (not hardy in northern Wisconsin) |
| Italian stone | —Pinus pinea (not hardy in northern Wisconsin) |
| pinon | —Pinus edulis (not hardy in northern Wisconsin) |
| bull pine | —Pinus Jeffreyi (hardy) |
| jack pine | —Pinus banksiana (very hardy) |
| limber pine | —Pinus flexilis (semi-hardy, a fine nut pine). |
Many of the limber pines came into bearing about fifteen years after the seed was planted. At that age they varied in height from three to fifteen feet. One little three-foot tree had several large cones full of seed. Each tree varied in the quality and size of its seeds. Although it might be possible to graft the best varieties on young seedling stocks, in all the hundreds of grafts I have made on pine, I have been successful only once. I doubt that such a thing would ever be practical from a commercial standpoint unless some new method were discovered by which a larger percentage of successful grafts could be realized.
I cultivated the Douglas fir, white, Norway, and Colorado blue varieties of spruce. Besides these, I planted balsam fir, red cedar, Juniperus Virginiana, and white cedar, Arborvitae. Practically all of these trees are still growing and many of them bear seed.
I wish to describe the limber pine, Pinus flexilis, for it is not only a good grower and quite hardy but it is also a very ornamental nut pine which grows to be a broad, stout-trunked tree 40 to 75 feet high. The young bark is pale grey or silver; the old bark is very dark, in square plates. The wood itself is light, soft and close-grained, having a color that varies from yellow to red. The needles, which are found in clusters of five, are slender, 1-1/2 to 3 inches long, and are dark green. They are shed during the fifth or sixth year. The buds of the tree are found bunched at the branch tips and are scaly and pointed. The limber pine has flowers like those of the white pine, except that they are rose-colored. Although the fruit is described as annual, I have found that, in this locality, it takes about fifteen months from the time the blossoms appear for it to reach maturity. That is, the fruit requires two seasons for growth, maturing its seeds the second September. The cones of the limber pine, which vary from three to seven inches in length, are purple, having thick rounded scales and being abruptly peaked at the apex. The seeds are wingless or have only very narrow wings around them.