The Philadelphia Weekly Press, which, by the way, has one of the most ably edited agricultural departments in its weekly edition of any daily paper that comes to our table - takes exception to some remarks of ours on timber culture that appeared in our June number. It says:

" We, doubt, however, whether forest planting on a large scale would ever pay if it was done according to the directions laid down by Prof. Meehan. He would have no undergrowth and keep the forest as he would an orchard.

"'For our country,' he adds, ' a forester should set out about 200 trees to the acre; crop for two or three years in some good desirable farm product, until the trees had grown so as to claim all the ground for themselves; then let them have it, or graze if desirable, when the trunks are strong enough to take care of the tree.'

" That is, he would set the young trees fifteen feet apart. They would need to be pretty large saplings if they claimed all the ground for themselves in two or three years. Experience shows that small trees are the safest to transplant, but if not it would be impossible to use trees large enough to cover the ground in any such period when set so far apart. If seedlings one or two years old are set four feet apart they are a help to each other against the winds, and they soon shade the ground to keep down the grass, which is certainly as exhausting as undergrowth. As they crowd each other they can be thinned out, and these successive thinnings are worth much more than the cost of cuttirtg them. Why should we treat a forest like an orchard ?"

To which we have to reply that if we can make any use of the ground for more than two or three years, we certainly should, - six, seven, eight, ten or more, if it was clear that the returns would pay for the labor spent.

When we said we would treat a forest as we would an orchard, it was intended to mean, that as an orchard needed continual care for success we must give continual care to a forest if we would get all out of it that profit requires. We would set out 200 trees to the acre as in an orchard; but "why should we treat a forest like an orchard ?" that is, set the trees about fifteen or twenty feet apart ? Can we not set them thicker, and thin them out, and will not the successive thinnings be worth much more than the cost of cutting them ? We think not, and that it is right there that the experience of European scientific forestry has failed. It has been shown by the figures that they do not pay the expense of cutting, and it is precisely because the figures show this, that we recommend crops that will pay better. And if the Old World shows this, we in America have the more reason to abandon the "thinning " notion, because of forest fires.

We cannot get rid of the waste "brush" under the thinning system. It remains to feed the forest fire; nor can we get rid of the stumps which will continue to sprout and grow, and the roots from these growing stumps will fight with those of the trees we leave stand for a share of that food which should all go to the standing timber if we would have the best results.

Aside from all these objections is the one element of time. If we can get 200 trees in 25 years as large by the " orchard " process, as in 50 years by the thick planting and thinning process, the difference will very soon eat up all the profit we can make on "thinning".

To our mind we are about entering on an era of profitable timber culture, but it will not be by selecting ground unfit for culture; by imitating the struggling and starving incident to "nature's way" of raising a forest, or by following the "science" of the'" Schools of Forestry " of the Old World. We shall have to start out entirely afresh, with knowledge gained from our own American experience.