A Crawford county correspondent of the Tribune says: " In this neighborhood there are two plantations which seem to prove that under intelligent management success is reasonably certain. The plantations are each of about five hundred acres, and are noteworthy for many reasons. One of them is the property of Mr. H. H. Hunniwell, a Boston capitalist. The trees have been planted as an investment, and although the forest cannot prove immediately remunerative, it bids fair to yield enormous profits in the future. The other enterprise is conducted on the same plan by the Fort Scott and Gulf Railroad Company, primarily to furnish ties and timber for its own use. The millions of sleepers which are needed every year by the roads crossing the treeless area renders it absolutely necessary to make some such provision for the future. The planting of trees on a large scale by railroad companies, especially by roads which have ample land grants, is so natural and proper that operations of this sort have frequently been undertaken.

But owing to carelessness or ignorance in selecting the ground, or in choosing varieties, or to improper methods of planting and management, most of the earlier ventures resulted in loss, discouragement and final abandonment.

The success of these experiments in Eastern Kansas ought to stimulate other companies and capitalists to new efforts, and landowners of small means by adopting similar methods can soon double the value of their own property, while at the same time they can add materially to the comfort and prosperity of their neighbors. In both these cases contracts were made with Robert Douglas & Sons, of Waukegan, 111. A block of 100,000 seedlings planted in the spring of 1879 on rich soil in the Fort Scott forest already ranges from ten to fifteen ft. in height, while the individual trees vary in circumference from eight to eleven inches. The catalpas in this plantation weathered triumphantly the parching drouth of 1881."