In the first place, I ask, what living thing upon one's farm will cause less labor than a forest tree? I know of none. This fulfills the first requirement. A forest tree calls for a minimum of attention as compared with other crops. This is especially true if one permits livestock to keep down weeds and brush. And here I am likely to be called a heretic. The authorities say, "No grazing in a forest". However, in this field of forestry there are some traditional maxims which, to say the least, are not capable of universal application. The authorities, too, have been known to rely upon what other authorities tell them--without investigating the facts for themselves. It is not well to rely too implicitly or trustfully upon the "authorities", either ecclesiastical or scientific. "No grazing" is a valid enough rule to follow in the ordinary forest, but I have found that after the trees are well grown we can graze the land under a deep-rooted walnut tree which is planted in deep, rich soil as we would graze any meadow land--in reason and in moderation. The practice is profitable for annual income and it keeps down the fire hazard. One bad fire in an ungrazed or unmown piece of brush-covered undergrowth can destroy in an hour 50 years of timber growth. If we plant deep-rooted nut trees in deep, rich soil, and if we fertilize that soil as any valuable permanent pasture land is fertilized, we can graze that land without injury to the trees or the land. One other reason which is given for the prohibition of grazing is the desire to save young tree growth. This is justified in ordinary forestry practice by the need to get annual income through successive cuttings. The young growth must be encouraged to come on. Even so, it must be thinned as it comes. However, a forest of black walnut trees yields its annual income in another way--through its nuts and its livestock. Trees in such a forest should be planted close enough together to cause them to reach straight up as they grow. They will not all reach straight up, of course, but enough will do so to produce as many saw-logs as will normally grow in a forest; that is, if they have been properly planted in the first place. In my own modified forest-type planting, the black walnut trees stand 8 feet apart in rows 20 feet apart. The 20-foot spacing between rows was planned to provide more sunlight for nut production during the early years. No one ever planted a forest in that way, so far as I know. The trees are now 17 years old, about 3250 of them in all. In the best soil of this 20 acres I can count about 1000 forest-type, straight, well-grown trees. There are about 1500 lesser trees, low-limbed trees which will eventually be used, perhaps, for posts or some such purpose. There are, I regret to say, about 750 trees that will never be worth anything. An eroded slope and a hidden clay bed explain these misbegotten dwarfs.