STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 115 



Mr. Samuel Edwards (of Mendota) presented the following report 

 on the subject of Arboriculture : 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON ARBORICULTURE. 

 Mr. President and Fellow Members of the Illinois State Horticultural Society: 



Having on several previous occasions served on this committee, the 

 following brief paper is prepared, not so much with a view of giving light 

 on the subject, as compliance with the scriptural injunction to give '* line 

 upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little." 



Tree planting on our prairies is very gradually on the increase. It 

 is a work which, to the casual observer, makes but little show from year 

 to year, but looking back to 1841 it is remembered that then only a few 

 young orchards and very rarely a locust grove were noticed in this region, 

 a striking contrast with what we now see very generally. 



For several years the locust used to be the timber tree, and was quite 

 extensively planted, and when the beautiful groves, on which so many 

 had placed their dependence for future fencings, were destroyed by the 

 borer, a general depression came over the minds of tree planters. For a 

 time their energies for work in this direction were paralyzed, and it is 

 only recently, from observation of the growth and value of a few other 

 varieties of trees as yet successfully cultivated here, confidence in timber 

 growing is being restored. Many have made small beginnings; a few 

 are planting extensively of black walnut, European larch, ash of different 

 varieties, white and Scotch pines, white willow, silver maple and ash- 

 leafed maple, all of which give good satisfaction, except the silver maple, 

 which is in some cases troubled with a borer, and limbs are broken in 

 severe storms. 



Some have advocated extensive planting of the chestnut, and for 

 over twenty years they were thrifty on a prairie mound, clay soil, with 

 good natural under-drainage, in my grounds. A severe winter succeeding 

 a drouth fatally injured one of the two trees set in 185 1 ; and on my 

 new grounds at Mendota, only some four feet to a stiff clay, they are very 

 unsatisfactory ; many trees four to six feet high were killed in the winter 

 of 1874-5. 



The tulip tree, for twenty-five years from first planting, grew finely. 

 Quite a number on the grounds of Arthur Bryant and Tracy Reeve, at 

 Princeton, and at "The Evergreens," LaMoille, failed under the same 

 circumstances as the chestnut. 



The English walnuts grown at LaPorte, Indiana, were brought to 

 one of the meetings of this Society, a few years since, by W. H. Ragan, 

 with the report that it proved hardy and had borne fruit there several 

 years. I tried a second hundred from an Eastern nursery ; they have 

 all winter-killed. Doubtless all of these varieties, planted on timber soil 

 in the southern and central parts of the State, will succeed. 



It is evident, from past experience, that it requires several years to 

 test varieties of trees before planting extensively on the prairies of our 

 sccticn of country. 



