518 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



returns for the time and money expended upon their cultivation. This 

 lesson is one that fits Michigan as well as Massachusetts. 



Relative Growth of Trees. — Prof. J. L. Budd writes that during a pleas- 

 ant and profitable day spent on the fine and well-kept grounds of the university 

 at Urbaua, 111., Professors Morrow and Burrill pointed out many interesting 

 and valuable lessons in the relative growth and value of different species of 

 timber trees in the twenty acre plantation set out on the prairie farm in the 

 springs of 1871-2-3-4 and 5. The rows run from the dry prairie, across a wet 

 depression, to the higher prairie on the other side, so all species have about the 

 same conditions and will show the relative adaptation to dry and wet soil. 



We can only say at this time that white pine, hard maple, white elm, green 

 ash, white willow, box elder, European larch, honey locust, catalpa and black 

 walnut show full healthy rows, and tell the story that they are well adapted to 

 the rich prairie soils such as that of the Grand Prairie in Central Illinois. On 

 the other hand, sweet chestnut, osage orange, ailantus, black wild cherry, Aus- 

 trian pine, Scotch pine, red cedar, and our common apple tree range from per- 

 fect failure to a near approach to satisfactory success. 



In height and size of trunk white willow is ahead. European larch on dry 

 soil stands even, and in height and diameter is about equal to any of the val- 

 uable species. Catalpa is not quite satisfactory, as the stronger plants crowd out 

 the weaker, so as to give room for low, bushy habit of growth: Black walnut 

 has made rapid upright growth, as it usually does on soil where the roots can 

 reach an even and perpetual supply of water. 



The specially valuable lessons of the plantation come in by comparison of 

 growth and health of species with plantations on higher and drier soil than any 

 part of Grand Prairie. As an instance, black wild cherry grows in an unsatis- 

 factory way in groves on Grand Prairie, 111., yet on high, dry ground in Iowa 

 it is eminently satisfactory. So the butternut seems at Urbana to fail in stem 

 by bark bursting like our tender apple trees, while on the higher and drier 

 ground in Illinois and Iowa it is especially satisfactory. 



How to Plant. — John Davis said before Kansas Horticultural Society: 



If you desire to raise brush plant wide. If you desire to raise long, smooth 

 stems plant close, with equal and regular spaces on all sides of each plant If 

 you desire to produce a leaning tree, crowd it with other trees on one side and 

 allow an open space on the other. It will lean toward the open space. Take 

 the black-walnut or the osage orange. Standing alone they make a bundle of 

 limbs and brush. Plant them in regular rows, two to four feet apart each way, 

 in a considerable body of several rows, and they grow into straight, valuable 

 timber. The outside rows will lean outward, and produce brush and crooked 

 stems. This may be corrected by planting the outside with peach trees, which 

 may bear fruit and produce fuel. In all plantations for timber great care 

 should be taken to prevent vacant spaces. Every vacant space will cause 

 crooked stems and brush around its margins. 



