seed
trees and which will improve the forest equal to the improvement in
livestock on the farms today. The razor back hog that roamed the forest
is gone and has been replaced by animals much improved; yet, the forest
in which it roamed is the same. Now we are turning to man made forests
and a chance to improve them by selecting the more valuable trees for
our source of seed. In the native hickory and black walnut, there is a
great need for more interest in searching for and preserving the most
valuable trees for their cracking quality, flavor, and productivity.
There have been and are now, nut trees on farms that were valuable
trees, but were known only to the owner and the small boys of the
community. These trees should have been preserved for posterity, but
many of them are lost forever.

In forestry, a tree's value may be in its ability to re-seed itself. In
the kinds of pine, the Virginia pine is one of the best, and also, one
of the youngest to produce seed cones. I have counted twenty-five cones
on a five year old Virginia Pine tree. In forestry, the red cedar is
good to re-seed itself in the area in which it grows. The maple ash,
cotton wood, and poplar also grow freely from nature's seeding.

Every tree that grows has a value. The leaves help purify the air; the
persimmon and the tree with a wild grapevine are food for wild life. The
old hollow tree is a refuge for the coon and o'possum and other wild
life. I have a hollow white oak on my farm I let stand because a family
of squirrels is raised in it every year. I also have a bee tree and the
bees help pollinate my fruit trees so they produce better. A world
without trees would be a desolate place. The value of a park is in its
trees.

I have spoken of the value of trees for the preservation of wild life,
but how do trees affect the life of man and how does man affect tree
life? Man is the builder or destroyer of tree life; although the tree is
the oldest living thing in plant or animal life, man is master over
trees. A man came into my farm office one day and said, "Everything in
this room either grew from the earth or was mined from the earth." How
about everything in this room? The furniture, the clothing you wear, the
ring on your finger, the glass in the windows, etc.? Let us think for a
minute, what are the things of the greatest value in this room? We have
an organization, The Northern Nut Growers Association. It did not grow
from the earth, there is