People often have an idea that rocky ground is poor ground. On the contrary, it is very rich from the vegetable accumulations which get between the crevices and cannot be washed away. Prof. Maynard recently told the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, that probably all present could recall instances where the native white pine, the Austrian and Scotch pines, the Norway spruce, the larch, the elm, maple, ash and other trees have been planted in turf and have made a satisfactory, and in some cases a remarkable, growth. One or two examples will suffice to illustrate this point. Upon a poor, gravelly hillside on the college farm at Amherst, where nothing but brambles and white birches would grow, were planted ten years ago a lot of European larches and Scotch pine trees, about two and a half feet high. The trees were taken from a nursery about half a mile dis-tant, one squad of students digging them while another squad were planting. The holes were dug about fifteen inches in depth and eighteen inches in diameter, and after planting the trees the soil on the upper side of the hole was moved to the lower side to form a basin to catch the water as it ran down the slope.

Nothing was applied in the way of additional fertilizing material, but the surface soil was used first about the roots, and the subsoil spread upon the top. Excepting about a dozen trees, all lived, and after about two years began to grow rapidly. One of the larches was cut from this lot last fall for a flagstaff for the barn at the experimental station, and was thirty feet long, seven inches in diameter at the base, and two and a half inches at the top. Many of the larch trees are larger than this, and will average about thirty-eight feet high, and six inches at the base. The Scotch pines planted at the same time and on the same soil have not reached as great height, but are of greater diameter and have made more branches. Had a mulch been used after planting, or a little bone or some other special fertilizer been added, the growth would have been much more rapid the first two years, and they would now be larger, as is shown by a few trees from the same lot that were planted in equally poor soil, but were mulched and have had a few shovelfuls of compost put around them at different times.

One of these larches now measures eleven inches in diameter at the base, and is forty feet high, and there might be cut from it three lengths for posts - one large stick eight feet long, that can be sawn so as to make two posts five and a half inches thick at the base and three and a half inches at the top; one round post seven inches thick at the base and five inches at the top; and one good vineyard post, the whole worth at least fifty cents per tree. Reckoning the value of each tree at one-half the above, and estimating a thousand trees to the acre, we have a value of $250 per acre.