lant more Eastern Black walnuts for
their exceedingly valuable timber?

"Backward" Burma could give us lessons in intelligent forestry. It is
said that the Burmese are permitted to clear their thickets and tropical
woodlands for agricultural use only after they agree to plant a definite
amount of that land in teak, perhaps the most valuable of all woods. It
is said that, due to the effectiveness of this system, some 35,000 acres
have now been stocked with this valuable timber.

There are two or three main reasons why the planting of Eastern Black
walnut for timber is thus far not very common in America. (1). The
native and favorable area of this tree is limited to a comparatively
small section. (2), The tree grows well only in deep, fertile soil where
quick-money crops have had the first call. Strip-mine planting is better
than none at all, but such soil as is left after a strip-mine operation
is hardly the best. (3) We are in too great a hurry. (4) Most farmers
must have annual incomes, or they must quit farming.

What, then, are the offsetting reasons why this kind of planting should
have an appeal to far-seeing people who are favorably located? In the
first place, the Eastern Black walnut yields wood of unique quality.
Pattern makers, who must work within tolerances of thousandths of an
inch, prefer it. Walter Page, a well known sports writer has this to
say: "Few woods come as close as walnut to fulfilling all the demands of
a good gunstock: beauty of grain, workableness with cutting tools,
resistance to warpage, weight or density in proportion to strength."

Another example of the many-sided versatility of this wood can be found
in those timbered regions of America where termites are a problem for
home owners. Termites seem to leave black walnut wood very much alone.
It probably has a taste which termites cannot stomach. This is one
reason why so many of the old rail fences of our ancestors in the walnut
area were made of black walnut. The "ground-chunks," in particular,
which were laid upon the ground under the corners of the worm-fences
were often either of rock, or of walnut.

Just this year I watched the demolition of part of an old log cabin
which was being riddled by termites. Many of the ordinary logs were in
ruins but the walnut boards which had served as weather-boarding over
the ends of some of the termite-infested logs were as sound and as
beautifully preserved as they had been when they were placed