STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 33 



Lombard}' Poplar and its cousin, Balm of Gilead, are grown with 

 ease and success. 



Locust^ planted by the first settlers, was a doubtful favor to the 

 country. 



{Villow hedge has been introduced to a limited extent. It will 

 remain limited. 



Cypress. A few are grown satisfactorily. 



Linden does well, both European and American. 



Elm., a success everywhere. It has a host of virtues and no faults. 



Barberry., valuable for fruit, ornament, and hedge. Hardy from 

 Labrador to Guatemala. 



Catalpa, a rapid grower and hardy, but its near relative the 



Pawlonia I have tried to grow for ten years. It will grow twelve to 

 sixteen feet in a summer, and freeze to the ground every winter. 



English Hawthorn^ a thing of beauty, hardy and good. 



Persimmon does finely, producing three distinct grades of fruit. Can 

 they be improved? 



Straxvberry Tree., plenty in the woods. 



Osage Orange is here at home. Our soil seems peculiarly fitted 

 for its perfection. 



Wild Crab Apple I grow for its flowers. 



Mountain Ash is not a "perfect success," being subject to nearly 

 the same diseases that so sorely aftiict our apple trees. 



Sassafras grows only to a very limited extent ; prefers a clay to our 

 sandy soil. 



More might be added, but the above has swelled this paper beyond 

 its intended length, but I can not close without noting a curiosity in 

 nature's arboriculture. Near the center of this county, on the center of a 

 prairie many miles in extent, in ^ome directions beyond the reach of 

 unassisted vision, rises a natural elevation of about forty feet, circular in 

 shape, cup-shaped on top, and covered by a veiy remarkable mixture of 

 trees and shrubs; everything in fact that grows in the county, and some 

 that are found nowhere else, here find a home. In this natural collection 

 of sample varieties I have spent hours in finding here a hackberry, an 

 elm, a paw-paw, prickly ash, black walnut, maple, etc., etc., in a perfectly 

 promiscuous maze. My own theoiy is that the seeds of these numer- 

 ous varieties were earned thither by the birds who sought this mound as 

 a resting place and for water (which it supplies), in their flights from and 

 to the distant belts of timber. 



The importance of timber cultivation can not be over-estimated, and 

 as a citizen of the Garden State of the gi'eat West, itself a garden (though 

 of somewhat extended dimensions), I hope the State Horticultural Society 

 will use its influence to secure such legislation as will encoura<i^e or 

 compel the planting and subsequent care of ornamental and timber 

 trees. Every consideration of interest, health, patriotism, pride, and ses- 

 thetic taste, urges to this end, with no one reason against it. 



Respectfully, 



J. Cochrane. 



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