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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



one of the sublimest resorts, Colorado 

 congressmen sat down on it. But 

 slowly and surely, the people are going 

 to rule. This country is going to be 

 saved. Not only conserved, but made 

 more beautiful and attractive. 



The rich soil of Nebraska is hungry 

 for trees. In '72 there was not a shrub 

 or tree on the townsite of York. Now 

 it is called the forest city. We have 

 single trees that would make over 1,000 

 feet of lumber. Timber pays. In 

 scores of instances men have cut $300 

 worth of Cottonwood lumber per acre,' 

 besides the firewood which was enough 

 to cover the cost. The land was left 

 all the better because it was subsoiled 

 by those vigorous roots. 



The side hills must and will be de- 

 fended from erosion and washing. You 

 see farms with deep gullies ploughed 

 through the cornfield ; too deep, almost, 

 to get a team across. Sometimes a 

 grain of sense will come to the owner 

 and he will dump in a load of straw, and 

 so stop 'the wash. One year ago we 

 had a fearful dust storm in the spring, 

 and in some cases entire furrows on 

 the hills were blown away. In one in- 

 stance the rich soil of a neighbor drifted 

 three feet deep on one of my hedges. 

 I told him I wished he would lariat his 

 farm and keep it at home. Groves and 

 windbreaks are needed to stop the fierce 

 gales which for ages have swept over 

 our prairies. Buffer-crops can be sown 

 on the long, sloping side hills. I once 

 saw in the Republican Valley a large 

 field of alfalfa which was catching the 

 wash from the long slopes above it. 

 The time will come when instead of the 

 man moving his barn to get it away 

 from the manure pile, he " will get a 

 spreader and put it on his farm. The 

 man who feeds cattle will learn sooner 

 or later that corn that is fed manure 

 is worth a small gold mine, and that it 

 will pay to save. 



People are waking up to their possi- 

 bilities. The boys of the future are 



going to show their fathers how things 

 will be done and that farming will pay. 

 Two boys in North Carolina raised 125 

 bushels of corn per acre, where their 

 neighbors were raising twelve. A boy 

 near West Point, last year, raised 114 

 bushels, where the neighboring men 

 were getting forty. Never yet has an 

 acre of rich land west of the Missouri 

 River been put to its best. The possi- 

 bilities of our state are astounding. The 

 time will come sooner or later when 

 more will be raised on forty acres than 

 the present system gets from 100. 



The roots of corn have been known 

 to go down six feet where they had a 

 chance, yet you see men ploughing three 

 inches deep for corn. The side hills 

 will not always be planted to corn, 

 which gives such a chance for wash- 

 ing. They will be planted to trees, 

 which will be mulched with straw, or 

 else sown to grass, which will be well 

 manured. 



The strangest thing is that men will 

 not plant trees. There are millions of 

 acres that are sometimes subject to 

 overflow w^hich for thirty years have 

 raised nothing but weeds and which 

 might be put to raising houses, barns, 

 and wood-piles. Better restore the old 

 woodshed, and raise your own fuel, and 

 give the coal barons the go-by. A farm 

 is an empire in itself. If the farmer 

 raises everything he needs he will grow 

 rich. The nation whose imports ex- 

 ceed the exports is growing poor. For 

 the last few years the balance of trade 

 has been in our favor. The past year 

 we were about $150,000,000 short, and 

 if this keeps up we shall have trouble. 

 The farmer who buys more than he 

 sells will soon raise a big crop of mort- 

 eaees. True conservation makes us 

 work the land to advantage and save.it 

 as one of God's best gifts to man. So 

 stand up for Nebraska and make it one 

 of the most brilliant stars in our na- 

 tional constellation. 



