STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 20t 



ponds than on streams, for admitting that the streams are lower also, as 

 undoubtedly they are, still there are islands and bayous where enough 

 trees escape the fire to distribute the seeds. 



Then another reason is, that any tree will bear a larger amount of 

 running water, and would not be as healthy on the margin of a pond, in 

 stagnant water, as on the margin of a stream, either in prairie or timber 

 land. I agree with Mr. Flagg, that valuable timber trees will not thrive 

 in peaty land saturated with stagnant water, but this applies to timber 

 land as well as prairie. 



When Mr. Flagg speaks of poisonous subsoils, I do not understand 

 what he means. I have never seen any indications of poisonous subsoil. 

 I have used the blue clay underlying the peat or muck. I have seen soils 

 dug out of wells and the canal, and out of sloughs of even, when digging 

 wells to water cattle, and have noticed often, that where a little mellow 

 soil happened to get near it, to give seeds an opportunity to get their 

 roots into this adhesive blue clay subsoil, they grew quite thriftily. 



He asks, on page 40, why the blackjack oak and mocker-nut hick- 

 ory start up in the prairie where no other oak survives. Neither of these 

 trees grow in the northern part of the State, where I reside, but if they 

 did, I would examine them to see if they were more free to start from the 

 collar, after being burned down, and if not, whether these acorns and 

 nuts are preferred to other kinds by any gopher or other animal that 

 would be likely to carry them out on the prairies, and also whether the 

 seeds of these two trees will endure longer in the ground than other tree 

 seeds equally plenty in that region. 



When Mr. Flagg, page 41, draws a comparison between Mr. 

 Dunlap's sweet cherry and Mr. Vickroy's sweet chestnut on the one side, 

 and with the catalpa, white ash, elm, and butternut on the other, does he 

 not see the same difference between them on the prairies in Champaign 

 county that he would find between them on clay subsoil in timber land ? 

 and does he ever expect that any amount of fittingw'xM ever make a strong 

 clay subsoil suited to a sweet cherry tree? 



Next, as to Mr. Scofield's success at Elgin. Now compare it with 

 that of Samuel Edwards, at Lamoille, on a |clay subsoil prairie. Mr. 

 Edwards' success is quite as marked as Mr. Scofield's, and they both, 

 from their own experience, on lands (juite dissimilar, agree exactly, and 

 recommend the same trees. This only proves what horticulturists have 

 always contended for, viz. : that some species of trees will only thrive on 

 a warm, sandy soil, others on a cool, clayey soil, while much the greater 

 number will grow ecjually well on either. 



I have already called attention to the distribution of the red cedar 

 by birds, and this, in a measure, will account for it being found over such 

 a great extent of country, as shown on page 41, in Mr. Flagg's 

 <luotation from Gray. Of course I do not claim that many trees would 

 grow on as wide a range, even if planted, but I contend that this tree 

 could not ]iropagate its species in many places where I have found it 

 growing, if it produced seeds like the i)ines. I can testify to this tree 

 being able to resist drought tp a remarkable degree, as I have seen it 



