LONG LIFE OF TREES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 126, 24 November 1923, Page 16

LONG LIFE OF TREES

HIGH MORTALITY IN EARLY STAGES. -

I Human beings cannot compete with trees in the matter of longevity, but human beings are more fortunate than trees up to certain age, according to mortality tables. A forest at maturity contains about 5 per cent, of all the trees that have begun life there. The percentage of persons living from 10 to 50 is much greater than in the ease of trees. About 95 per cent, of trees die before they are' 80 years old, while only 87 per cent, of persons will die before reaching that age.' But when it came to trees 100 years of age and over it is necessary to go back into Biblical history to find human being who compare with them in length of years. Ulethusaleh and Noah were far ahead of the majority iof common trees as centenarians but no man and no nation has' lived as' long as the sequoia trees. The sequoia attains |an age of about 4000 years. A sprucetree in a forest at 20 . years requires about 4ft of square space; at 40 years, 34ft square; at 60 years, 70, and at 100 years, 150 square feet. Pine trees demand at least 15 per cent, more light space than spruce trees, and nearly 40 per cent, more than fir trees, according to tables prepared by the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University. In some natural pine forests where | the trees grow very close together, statistics show that more than 4000 trees per acre die between the ages of 10 and 80, and that only 300 out of the remainder die between the ages of 80 and 100. With some this natural "dying proceeds faster than with others. With pine, birch, aspen, 1 and all species which demand a great deal of light, the death rate ie enormous. The spruce, beech, fir, and, generally speaking, all species which are satisfied with less light are not affected 30 seriously.