Forestry on the Plains. 157 



By this plan small plants, if healthy, do about as well in the end as the 

 large. No variety is known not readily transplanting at one year old. Even 

 varieties of tap-root characteristics, oaks, walnuts, hickories and chestnuts, 

 are really better, I am convinced, for tap-root pruning. By it, laterals or 

 fibrous feeding roots are induced. Or, if larger sizes are desired before 

 transplanting, root-pruning, by running a tree-digger under the rows and 

 allowing them to remain a year or two longer, good results are obtained. As 

 a rule, however, better success is had by transplanting young trees when, as 

 near as possible, all roots are preserved. Small trees cost less to purchase, 

 transport, handle and transplant. 



Alternating — especially certain varieties — has not given satisfaction. Trees 

 in some respects are not unlike mankind — will not fraternize. For instance, 

 oaks, walnuts and hickories will not fraternize with maples, cotton woods and 

 elms. When planted near each other, the latter will invariably lean away 

 from the former, assuming crooked, gnarly appearance, and in the end vir- 

 tually die out. 



INCIDENTAL ILLS. 



Thus far few ills have attended timber culture on the plains. The great 

 losses or failures have been from careless handling, planting and after ne- 

 glect. Black locust was planted extensively in earlier days, but being so 

 badly affected by borers, its cultivation, until of late, was almost entirely 

 abandoned. The j^est, which almost universally destroyed in the beginning, 

 suddenly and without known cause disappeared, and that valuable variety of 

 timber is again receiving mei'ited attention. In certain portions of Nebraska, 

 during one or two years, a large green worm — name not known — defoliated 

 most soft maples, for a time checking their growth. In a few instances the 

 same borer attacking black locust, to a limited extent, injured soft maples and 

 cottonwoods. They being of such rampant growth, injury was not material. 



Trees attacked were principally those used for ornamental purposes — those 

 on streets in cities and villages. Where ground has been well and deeply 

 prepared, good healthy plants used, care exercised in handling and j^lanting, 

 followed by attention and projoer cultivation, until able to care for self, there 

 has been no good cause for complaint. 



IMPORTANCE OF SPONTANEOUS GROWTH. 



Too much importance can not attach to spontaneous timber growing. 

 Nature, in this respect, is both accommodating and bounteous in her provis- 

 ions. Waste places, as a rule, are utilized. Lands, which, if at all adapted 

 to other uses, could only be prepared at extra expense, are those nature oc- 

 cupies and renders of value. This growth comes of its own accord, so to 

 speak, without preparation or labor by man, other than to guard against lires 

 along broken and often precipitous bluffs and ravines, in nooks and corners 

 of tortuous and meandering streams, incident to prairie regions. 



A friend, writing from the Republican Valley, three hundred miles west 

 from the Missouri river, says: "Oak timber begins to be noticeable, and 



