4G STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



hiding place from the \viiii]s, tliafc trees so protected have heeii observed to be 

 fruitful ^vhcu others in bleak situations have utterly failed. 



I have been expected to speak, perhaps, mainly of evergreens for ornamental 

 and decorative purposes ; but I was also desired to speak of them for screens 

 and hedging. Tiiis is an eminently practicable field. Evergreens are worth- 

 less for hedging, if by hedging is meant fencing, such as will turn cattle. 

 Indeed tliey are of all others a kind of tree that cattle must not be allowed to 

 approach ; as a cow upon whose head uneasy rests her crown, will destroy a fine 

 evergreen of more value than herself, in a very few moments, making a distaJBf 

 of her horns she will spin a web of iH'oken foliage about her, evidently taking 

 great pleasure in the performance, proclaiming her triumph with cheers of un- 

 earthly sound, and sublime waving of tail pointed toward the zenith. 



As hedges and screens, not to fence out cattle, but to fence out destroying 

 winds, the value of the evergreen in this climate i.s almost beyond computation. 

 Several times within the last twenty years, I have in the leading public prints 

 endeavored to draw the attention of farmers to this important truth. 



The winds arc of great consequence, we could not live a year without them; 

 they not only purify tlie atmos])here, removing "all the infections that the sun 

 sucks up from bogs, fens, flats," but they alone move, if they do not even make 

 the clouds. They pnmp up the sea, and pour it out over the mountains, and the 

 mountains and hills thus provided form brooks and rivers to refresh the plains. 

 The winds blow where they list, as it appears, but they are after all enlisted 

 under a great Commander, and they move subject to orders that are never 

 countermanded. They carry burdens as they cross continents, that would ten 

 thousand times over sink all the ships that sail, and crush all the beasts of 

 burden that ever lived. But for the winds, the Mississippi and the Amazon 

 would have had no water, and the Oregon would never have heard the sound 

 of its own dashings. 



Like other armies, however just the cause, the winds in their raids across the 

 country do great damage ; and when wo hear, especially in the very early spring, 

 the marches of their homeless feet, beating upon the unsheltered fields, we know 

 that the farmers wheat is being trodden out, and that a heavier tax is being 

 levied on his crops than any foraging party from an enemy's camp would be 

 able to enforce in a single foray. 



Against this invasion the evergreens nuiy be marshalled, dressed on parade, 

 and formed in line, so as to impose an invincible array. I^ot one of j'ou farm- 

 mers present, not even one of your wives or daughters, has failed to observe in 

 the spring of the year when there is always more or less mourning over winter 

 killed wheat, that even the poor protection of an open rail fence is sulUcient to 

 make a good crop for the width of two or three rods next to it, while nearly all 

 the rest of the field is gone. It is equally noticeable that a belt of timber to the 

 westward of an enclosure will afford complete protection to a forty acre field of 

 growing wheat. 



The loss to Michigan farmers by the winter-killing of Avheat and clover is 

 enough in the average length of a working life to make a little fortune for each 

 if it could be saved. Micliigau raised in 18T4, 15,500,000 bushels of wheat and 

 1,13-1,000 tons of hay. Now if the dan)ago by winter-killing, taking one year 

 "with another, is equal to one-fifth part of the crop, and I believe it to be much 

 more, then the loss of money annually is, estimating wheat at ^^1.00 per bushel, 

 and hay at ^7.00 per ton, >H,G87,000 to the agriculturists of the State. 



