50 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



or those known to be specially adapted to his region. He knows what 

 cultivation is necessary to retain moisture and develop plant food, and in 

 the selection of varieties he can secure the advice of experienced men. 

 who are acquainted with his region. With these facts before him he 

 should not hesitate from fear of failure to succeed in his undertaking. 



The aesthetic sence of the people must be cultivated to demand these 

 better things. This appreciation will grow with the ability to gratify 

 the desire. Still, we need teachers who shall go up and down through 

 the land to preach the adornment of nature through trees and fruit and 

 flower, to counteract the destruction through washed and wasted hillsides 

 and torrential food. 



The planting of forest trees is an economic policy which should be 

 fostered by the individual, the state and the nation. A fo'iest policy 

 should be established which would plant the headwaters of the streams 

 and the waste areas in the sand hills to trees for posts and other uses. 

 These forests would hold the moisture which falls upon the land and 

 check the sweep of winds, so that even though the rainfall is not in- 

 creased by this method it will be better distributed and more completely 

 utilized. In the southeastern part of the state it would seem easily pos- 

 sible, by planting the rougher hillsides to hardy catalpas, osage and black 

 and honey locusts and probably other varieties to make them pay divi- 

 dends in excess of their value of the land for farming purposes. Every 

 hillside so planted helps to check the flow of the water towards the 

 streams and to lessen or prevent the floods which are causing such enor- 

 mous damage in this region. Ten or fifteen years should be sufficient for 

 growing a crop of posts, and twenty-five years should grow railroad ties 

 of the hardy catalpa. The value of these crops would probably net as: 

 much per acre as to use these hillsides for grazing or cropping purposes, 

 and the dangers of soil washing would be almost wholly prevented. 



The arguments for a practical agricultural education apply with spec- 

 ial force to men and women engaged in horticultural pursuits. These 

 lines of work are highly technical in their nature. They demand special 

 training, which can only be secured through long, practical experience 

 or through instruction from those having this special knowledge. 



The School of Agriculture stands for advanced knowledge along all 

 agricultural lines, and the Experiment Station is ever seeking for new- 

 facts to help in developing and extending the horticultural interests of the 

 state. At the central station, orchards are being grown under different 

 methods of treatment, viz., clean cultivation; cultivation with cover- 

 crops for ripening the wood in autumn, growing trees with a regular crop 

 also grown on the land, etc., etc. Varieties are being tested both of trees, 

 small fruits and vegetables. An area of about ten acres is being parked 

 and planted to study different families of ornamental trees and shrubs. 

 At the North Platte station eighteen acres of forest timber is planted and 

 the area will be considerably increased. Many varieties of trees are being- 

 used to determine the best varieties and the best combination.^ for plant- 



