288 ILLINOIS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the trees afford sufficient shade to protect themselves from grass-growth ; 

 2d, when planted, without early leafing varieties to act as nurses, or 

 without continued cultivation, they are a total failure. The European 

 larch would act this part probably the best of any tree ; first, from its 

 early leafing ; second, its upright, trim form ; third, its tendency to enrich 

 the ground with its annual leaf-shedding.* The sugar maple would do 

 well as a nurse, rather than the soft maple, as it grows along with the 

 black walnut, unharmed by its presence, as demonstrated by an experiment 

 here, continued on the aforesaid Cox farm, of over thirty years' continu- 

 ance. These "nursing" trees (as we call them), when planted in thick 

 forest with walnut, act the double part, first, as a protection from the 

 grass-growth ; second, they secure a clean upright stem or trunk. 



Silver {or Soft) Maple. — This tree promised well everywhere on my 

 ground during the first ten or twelve years, and some trees in the most 

 favorable locations have made a diameter, at the collar, of eighteen (i8) 

 inches in fifteen years. It is liable to break with wind in summer and ice 

 in winter; and already, in many instances, shows signs of maturity and 

 decay. It is well adapted to wet soils, where it becomes a valuable tree. 

 It grows to great abundance and perfection in the timbered country north 

 of Syracuse, N. Y., and as yet supplies the material for salt and flour bar- 

 rels of Syracuse and Oswego. 



White Ash. — Trees planted in 1856, of one inch in diameter and 

 seven feet in height, standing two rods apart, as ornamental trees, are 

 only equaled in beauty by the horse chestnut and sugar maple. These 

 have a height of thirty feet, and diameter of eight to fourteen inches, and 

 spread of limbs twenty to twenty-five feet. Trees of this variety have a 

 strong tendency to reproductiveness, from sprouting from the stump of 

 the original tree. The trees from seed planted in the year 1858, and 

 transplanted in forest belts with European larch and black walnut, have 

 formed straight, smooth bodies twenty-five to thirty feet in height, with a 

 diameter of three to four inches. 



Sugar {or Hard) Maple. — Trees planted twenty feet apart, seven feet 

 in height, in the year 1856, now have a height of twenty-five feet, and 

 diameter of six to eight inches, spreading twelve to seventeen feet. Trees 

 from seed, planted in 1858, have a height of twenty feet, and a diameter 

 of three to six inches. The growth of this tree on prairie soil is remark- 

 ably slow from fifteen to twenty years from planting, from which time it 

 makes satisfactory growth. Trees planted one inch in diameter thirty- 

 three years ago, separately, on the farm of C. H. Larkin, immediately 

 adjoining my plantation, have an average circumference, at one foot from 

 the ground, of three feet one seven-tenths inches (3 feet 1,0 inches) ; 

 height thirty, and spread twenty-five feet. 



A wild cherry tree on the same ground, from seed planted twenty- 

 six years, has a circumference of five feet. 



* Already on the surface of the ground under the larch trees I find a formation of more than an 

 inch in thickness of rich vegetable mould, which proves to be a rich fertilizer for house plants. 



