100 ; TEANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



Col. G. B. Brackett, Iowa — I have four distinct varieties of 

 catalpa on my own grounds. In them all, there is a manifest differ- 

 ence. You have all heard of Mr. Suel Foster, of Muscatine, Iowa. 

 When the Iowa State Agricultural rooms were being fitted up at Des 

 Moines, he cut a very large Catalpa Speciosa, which he had grown 

 on his own grounds, and sent it to Des Moines and had it sawed 

 into boards and worked into the finish of the State Agricultural 

 rooms, as a memento of State product; as a finishing lumber, it is 

 remarkably handsome. 



The Hon. J. M. Pearson now addressed the Society on " Orna- 

 amental Planting for Farmers," but as the copy has not been 

 furnished the Secretary, only the following brief synopsis can be 

 published : 



Ornamental planting for farmers, means that kind of planting 

 that will not make you one cent, and yet I hope to make it appear 

 that often it is better for us to do this sort of work, that ornamental 

 planting gives us that which dollars and cents can not buy, and the 

 value of which can not be computed on a money basis. Then, for 

 ornamental planting, what shall we begin with? Why, most cer- 

 tainlv, in something which will give us quickest returns, in that 

 which is of rapid growth and of early development. This, of course, 

 will lead us to plant the very best selection in the line of annual 

 flowers and plants. From this start we should elaborate in all 

 known directions, culminating only when we have reached from the 

 most tiny and delicate plant and flower to the most majestic trees of 

 the forest. 



Children should be taught the importance and methods of orna- 

 mental planting. Before I was eight years old I was interested in 

 gardening and tree planting. The cost need not deter any one, 

 as there is scarcely a community in Illinois where trees and plants 

 and flowers can not be procured for digging. 



An old gentleman who had handsomely ornamented his grounds, 

 sold for a high price and built a modest house near by. When asked 

 if he did not regret the change, he replied that he did not, for he 

 could enjoy the trees he had planted fifty years ago and nurtured 

 for almost a lifetime, just as well as before. 



Mr. Hay — Tree planting is a hobby with me, and wherever 1 

 have room I plant another tree, and have sometimes been the victim 

 of a slick-tongued tree agent. I once paid one of these fellows three 

 dollars for a little switch about the size of my pencil, which, in the 

 course of time, bloomed. It proved to be the "Magnolia Conspicua," 



