TRANSACTIONS HOIITICLLTL RAL SOCIETY OF NORTHERN ILL. 207 



During a somewhat protracted stay in southern Central New York, 

 whicli gave me summer and winter views of hill-land scenery, I found 

 many things quite striking. The old pines have been mostly cut, but the 

 young ones stand "liquid green " among the winter snows, growing on 

 the hill-sides, and with here and there an ancient tree crowning many of 

 the hill-crests. I saw more plainly than ever before, that if many of our 

 knolls and ridges were crowned with groups of evergreens, as I suggested 

 in a paper before this Society several years ago, the West would become as 

 fair to look upon as she is now productive. In that li ill-land region, 

 the winds are not wild, searching winds like ours, but tame creatures that 

 enliven but do not torment. Why should not tree shelter do for us in a 

 great degree what the hills and trees do for that locality, give us warmer 

 winter days and softer winds. 



For the best effect in scenery, each group of evergreens should have 

 some striking feature of ground surface associated with it. Nature not 

 only plants them on crests, but on the sides of ravines ; she scatters them 

 in the pastures, and gathers them in the swamps. Along public roads 

 I have found — in places where pine groves once stood, but the land is 

 now used for tillage — the young pines packed so closely into the road- 

 side fence corners as to obscure the fence in many places, and sometimes 

 the^r borders extended to the very road track. 



Most farmers consider the extensive planting of evergreens very 

 expensive. The proper way to reduce cost is to set out a small nursery 

 of hardy, free-growing kinds. The cost of small trees is little, and the 

 labor of caring for them trifling. In a few years, they are ready for use 

 during any leisure day in the tree-planting season. My own expense for 

 small evergreens, sufficient for use on my farm, did not exceed thirty dol- 

 lars. When they had grown to a size suitable for removal to already 

 chosen permanent localities, with a team, low sled and a man to assist, I 

 have removed and set out a large group in a day. The days spent in this 

 labor are among the happiest of my life. It is a joy to raise a tree, to 

 set it in its permanent home, and think that it will remain a monument 

 of one's tastes and labors on the earth, for perhaps a century. For this 

 farm I paid twenty dollars per acre, and in less than ten years I sold it 

 for fifty dollars per acre. Farm adornment does pay in money, as well 

 as in beauty. Dollars never return a heavier interest to the farmer than 

 when put into attractive objects that will increase the charms of nature 

 upon his land. 



Woodlands keep the homestead in "good heart " No farm is 

 complete without one, for beauty as well as utility. If it be close to the 

 highway, and have some depth, it adds greatly to the apparent seclusion 

 of one's premises. Distance is deceptive, and greatly magnified in wood- 

 lands. Deep green, retired, snug in winter and cool in summer, what 

 fires light up a wood of mingled trees in autumn ! An opening in the 

 wood is rendered very pleasing if crimsoned, in September, with a patch 

 of sumac. A few trees of the June-berry, wild plum and flowering log- 

 wood will whiten its borders in May, and an occasional crab apple will 

 flush it with red at about the same season. 



