Prof. C. S. Sargent, in speaking of this timber, says: “To develop its best qualities, the white ash should be planted in a cool, deep, moist, but well drained soil, where it will make a rapid growth. That the plantation may be profitable as early as possible, the young trees should be inserted in rows three feet apart, the plants being two feet apart in the rows. This would give 7,260 plants to the acre, which should be gradually thinned until 108 trees are left standing, twenty feet apart each way. The first thinning, which might be made at the end of ten years, would give 4,000 hoop poles, which at present price would be worth $400.
“The remaining thinnings, made at different periods up to 25 or 30 years, would produce some three thousand trees more, worth at least three times as much as the first thinnings. Such cutting would pay all the expenses of planting, the care of plantation, and the interest on the capital invested, and would leave the land covered with trees capable of being turned into money at a moment’s notice, or whose value would increase for a hundred years, making no mean inheritance for the descendants of a Massachusetts farmer. The planting of the white ash as a shade and roadside tree is especially recommended, and for that purpose it ranks, among our native trees, next to the sugar maple.”
Prof. B. G. Northrop says in reference to this tree: “One of the most valuable of our native trees is the white ash, and, all things considered, it is one of the most profitable for planting. Combining lightness, strength, toughness, elasticity, and beauty of grain in a rare degree, it is in great and growing demand for farming tools, furniture, interior finishing of houses and railroad cars, the construction of carriages, for oars and pulley blocks, and many other purposes. The excellence of our ash is one secret of the preference given abroad to American agricultural implements. It is hardy, will bear the bleakest exposure, is a rapid grower and attains large size, but will not thrive on poor lands. It is every way superior to the European ash, much as that has been cultivated and lauded abroad. It is now found widely in the nurseries and young plantations attached to the forest schools of Europe. Director General Adolfo di Beranger, president of the Royal Instituto Forestale, at Vallombrosa, pointed me to his plantations of Fraxinus Americana with a tone which implied that is the tree of which Americans may well be proud.
“The ash is a fine ornamental tree for private grounds, public parks, or for the wayside. When planted closely for timber they grow straight and free from low laterals, and early reach a size that makes the thinnings valuable for poles and fencing.
“The seeds of the white ash are abundant, ripening by the first of October. They may be easily gathered after the first frost. If sown in the fall, they should be covered with three inches of straw. If to be sown in the spring, the seed may be mixed with damp sand.”
Sawdust.
Sawdust has been a source of worry and expense to mill men in various ways, though it is to be admitted that in utilizing it to some extent as fuel they have in part solved the problem of its economical disposition. Lately, there has sprung up a certain demand for it, and the problem of its cheap shipment is now one that presents itself. A Yankee inventor has tried baling it, and appears to have devised a scheme that accomplishes the purpose successfully. He makes the sawdust into bales, and has progressed so far as to be able to compress thirty‐two cubic feet, or a quarter of a cord, into a package three feet long by two feet on each of its sides. As this occupies only twelve cubic feet, the reduction is sixty‐two and one‐half per cent. of its original bulk. The machine used is nothing more than an ordinary hydraulic press, which is arranged in a manner similar to a hay or cotton press. The sawdust is pressed into bales and at the same time inclosed in a burlap covering, making a neat and easily handled package for shipment. Small pieces of wood, shavings, etc., may be baled with the sawdust or separately with equal facility. It appears a simple method of putting this bulky stuff in convenient shape for shipment, and it would seem might be employed to advantage wherever a market can be found for this species of mill refuse.—The Timberman.
