Addresses — A Plea for Tree Planting. 205 



your successors good supplies of fuel and lumber that will be 

 needed when the present forests shall have been exhausted. Plant 

 trees in the prairies and keep on planting! All your best efforts will 

 be required, nor need you have any apprehensions that the planting 

 will be over done. 



But you may improve on the quality of your planting, and it may 

 be well to inquire into this. Your intelligence and the result of 

 your observations will be trusted to guide you to a satisfactory 

 result. Even in the timber counties you may vastly improve in the 

 quality of the trees. In traversing the southeastern portion of 

 your state, especially in the regions where the drift formation is 

 largely developed, and rises into long slopes, the traveler is struck 

 with the remarkable effect produced by the frequent planting of 

 lines of tall trees, that have been introduced as wind-breaks. 

 Though generally set in single rows, these trees undoubtedly exert 

 a happy influence in breaking the force of the winds; but, let it be 

 asked, do you not need something better than this foreign tree? 

 Do you not desire to plant something that will be more valuable, 

 and if so, let us consider the propriety of supplementing these with 

 some of the beautiful, the hardy native evergreens. 



The Lombardy poplar has been to you, what the Cottonwood 

 still is to the newer states beyond the great river, the pioneer. This 

 poplar is from Europe; introduced into our continent in the last 

 century, it has widely and rapidly spread over the land; it is no 

 novelty. In all southern Europe it is frequently seen in long ave- 

 nues by the roadside, where it is frequently cut back for its brush. 

 In many of our soils it is a short lived tree, yielding poor fuel and 

 inferior lumber; useful, however, for some purposes in the arts. 



To show how it is appreciated by European foresters, the fol- 

 lowing quotation is made from one who stands very high in the 

 pursuit of this important industry. My good friend Siemoni, in 

 his Manual of Practical Forestry, says "that it is considered only 

 a variety of the Populus nigra, or common black poplar of Eu- 

 rope, from which it is distinguished by its pyramidal orfastigiate 

 habit, by its larger leaves with greater transverse diameter, by their 

 deltoid and pointed form, with larger and more compressed petioles. " 



"This tree never produces any but male flowers, and of course 

 no seed is ever seen, so that it is certain that the Lombardy can be 

 nothing but a form (sport) of Populus nigra which has acciden- 



