RErORTS FROM LOCAL SOCIETIES. 107 



the progress and perfection attained since its commencement in 1S59 or 'CO, I 

 believe our astonishment no doubt would be great indeed. Many of the cities 

 and villages of our own State are found well up in the scale of merit in this 

 regard. Nor is the country, — the rural districts, — the home of the farmer and 

 the husbandman, found behind in this respect. And what more appropriate 

 recommendation in this centennial year could have been given by our worthy 

 Governor than for every one owning a rod of ground to plant at least one' tree. 

 Never was a suggestion more timely and appropriate, and I believe none will be 

 more generally observed. On all sides, from north to south, from east to west, 

 throughout the entire length and breadth of our State we hear the response' 

 that the work preparatory has already begun for the fulfillment of this laudable 

 enterprise. I hear of villages preparing to make Saturday next a holiday, — 

 closing their places of business that nothing may interfere with the work of this 

 day. Other states, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey, and perhaps 

 many others have caught the inspiration, and are preparing to follow our 

 example in this respect. How fitting then it is that this work should be intelli- 

 gently and properly done. It is not intended, I apprehend, for this to be a 

 Avork of to-day only, but the work of an age, one that shall outlast the present 

 generation, and the next, and possibly the third, and more. It has seemed to' 

 me, Mr. President, that the first step in our progress is to be the selection of 

 species and varieties to be planted. Many of you have no doubt already fixed 

 upon some particular kinds as most appropriate for the place and object to be 

 attained. Our native forests and woodlands will be the resort for most of us-to- 

 obtain our supply, and those that are known to be the hardiest and longest 

 lived will be among the first in consideration, and you will pardon me if I 

 mention a few of them. The elm, the oak, the basswood, the whitewood, the 

 hard or sugar maple, and the white ash form examples in this class whose utility 

 is mostly confined to their value for timber or shade. 



The ash, whitewood, and elm form the most valuable in this class, where 

 abundance of space can be spared ; and among the edible nut-bearing species, 

 under like circumstances, are found the chestnut, the black walnut, and some 

 varieties of hickory, of which last Michigan furnishes few if any valuable varie- 

 ties, at least so far as I am acquainted. The black walnut is the best of these. 

 Where space is more limited, the white or soft maple forms the most desirable 

 variety. And where we are confined to still narrower limits, the beech and the 

 birch may be planted with good results. Among the foreign varieties I have 

 become convinced there are none so valuable as the horse chestnut and some of 

 the birches. I was formerly greatly in favor of the European variety of the 

 mountain ash, but after giving it a trial of a quarter of a century in my own 

 county of Kalamazoo, have learned to regard it with less and less favor from 

 year to year, and now would not plant it all. These are the best suggestions 

 I am able to give you in regard to our deciduous species. Let us now pay our 

 respects to the evergreen class, — and first and foremost among our native sorts 

 stands the hemlock spruce. There is no locality in our State where it will not 

 succeed, unless it be some portions of the Upper Peninsula with which I am 

 unacquainted. It adapts itself to almost any soil, from barren sands to the 

 strongest clay, — from the naked rock, with scarcely soil enough for its roots to- 

 obtain a foothold, to the richest prairie. The densest in form when properly 

 grown ; the most lively and delicate in color of foliage ; the most graceful, and 

 oftimes the most picturesque in habit. It is of all our native species emphati- 

 cally the queen of evergreens. I regard first, last, and the only one of the fir 



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