STATE HORTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 235 



RErORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON ARBORICULTURE. 



By A. Bryant, Sen. 



In the opinion of the Committee, a review of the past year, shows a growing attention 

 to the cultivation of shade and forest trees in Northern Illinois. The demand for such 

 trees is evidently increasing, and nurserymen are making preparations to meet it. The 

 prospect is therefore encouraging. Yet it is true, that a very small portion of our land- 

 holders are alive to the importance of the subject. For every acre of forest trees planted, 

 thousands are destroyed. It may be safely assumed that In the county of Bureau, one- 

 half the primitive growth of timber has been destroyed within the last fifteen years. 

 Nb1 only this, but tracts of young timber trees, whose growth annually added at least 

 ten per cent, to their value, have been cut down for fire wood. The necessity of imme- 

 diate and strenuous exertion to repair this waste, must be obvious to every intelligent 

 mind. Let then, those who are aware of the importance of the matter endeavor to 

 arouse others ; and above all set the example, which is often far more potent than pre- 

 cept. Let those who manage our County Agricultural Societies, who certainly ought to 

 be informed on this subject, devote the premiums, worse than wasted upon jockeyism, 

 to the encouragement of tree planting. There is work enough for all. 



The value of the Black Walnut for timber is well known, and it is more easily raised 

 from seed than almost any other tree. The nuts when gathered maybe thrown in a 

 heap, and covered with earth. In the spring, they should be taken out and planted, and 

 cultivated like corn. After two or three years' culture, the trees will need no other care 

 than the exclusion of stock. 



The White Oak, the Burr Oak, the Ashes, and the Maples, merit cultivation, and 

 before all, the European Larch. This tree which is planted, for timber in Great Britain 

 to a greater extent than all others ; combines strength and durability, with rapidity and 

 symmetry of growth, in a degree hardly to lie found in any other. Loudon quotes from 

 the Elstoryof Trees and Shrubs of Desfontaines, a French writer, a statement that there 

 are in Switzerland long established vineyards, in which the vine props are made of larch. 

 These have been transmitted from father to son, without ever having been renewed. It 

 must not be suppos •<! that the habits of the European Larch are like those of the 

 American. The former is a mountain tree, and will probably succeed best in our driest 

 and most uneven lands. Loudon enumerates certaiii soils on which the larch, although 

 it will grow, will not produce' sound and perfect timber. One of these is low flat land, 

 abounding in vegetable matter, and saturated in wet seasons with stagnant water. 



These suggestions are not offered as being anything now. Indeed, little that is new 

 can be said upon the subject, nor is it needed. It is by "continual dropping" — by pcr- 

 sistenl effort — by reiterated precept and example, that the great majority of land-own- 

 ers musl be brought to intereBl themselves in the subject. And who can say thai the 

 object to be attained is not one of the most worthy to which the efforts of our cultiva- 

 tor- can be directed. Imagination may picture the period when our prairies shall bo 

 dotted with countless proves of young wood — when belts and screens of evergreens 

 shall shelter the dwellings and outhouses, and moderate the extremes of heat and cold 



