290 ILLINOIS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



1876, and filled with Scotch pine for "nurses," with trees grown from 

 seed gathered from the trees imported and planted in 1858, and now six 

 to ten feet in height. Cultivate till self-protected. 



Scotch Ft fie. — In close plantations, four to six feet apart, have a 

 height of twenty to twenty-five feet, and a diameter of six to seven inches. 

 When standing separate have twice this diameter and form a beautiful 

 tree, valuable as wind-breaks, growing surely and rapidly on nearly every 

 variety of soil, and very hardy. 



Black Austrian Pine. — Grows equally with the Scotch, and mainly 

 valuable for ornament and wind-breaks. 



Norway Spruce. — When planted alone, spreads nearly as wide as it 

 grows in height, forming a beautiful pyramid. The greatest diameter of 

 trunk of these is fifteen inches, from trees planted in 1857, one foot in 

 height. 



American White Spruce. — Is a beautiful tree, equaling, if not excel- 

 ing, the Norway, and with the same habits. 



Arbor Vitce, American {White Cedar). — Forms a beautiful tree when 

 young and standing alone, and it may be successfully sheared to any 

 desired form. It grows sloAvly, and when planted closely in rows, six feet 

 apart and only one foot in the row, has a diameter of two to four inches, 

 and sixteen feet in height. 



Siberian Arbor Vitce is equally hardy with the American, and grows 

 more compact and beautiful. 



Hemlock. — When planted on prairie soil, makes a slow and dwarfish 

 growth till twelve or fifteen years old; is better on hard soil. 



American Silver Fir iBalsani). — A rapid, beautiful grower, its main 

 value being as an ornamental tree; is less hardy in the extremes of cold 

 following exceeding severe drouths, as in 1864-5; as in the case of the 

 great drouths which then visited this western country, when a great many 

 of the finest of the balsam trees, many of them forty feet in height, died. 



European Silver Fir is too tender for this climate, and has only 

 flourished in protected situations. It has a height of thirty feet and a 

 diameter of six to seven inches, and should be used only as an orna- 

 mental tree. Yet this tree shows early old age, and is less beautiful in 

 twenty or thirty years. 



At the close of the reading by Mr. Scofield, the President retired 

 from the chair, after calling upon Vice-President Minkler to preside. 



DISCUSSION OX TREE-PLANTING FOR LIVE POSTS, ETC. 



Mr. Minkler said he was setting Ben Davis apple trees and Euro- 

 pean larch for live posts — planting them eight feet apart. He nails a 

 strip of lumber upon the bodies of the trees, when large enough for use 

 as posts, and upon this fastens two wires and aboard, which makesa good 

 fence. At the same time, he gets the full cost of the fence in its benefits 

 as a wind-break. 



