236 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



an acre would do. This you might be able to cultivate thoroughly and 

 see that it is well fertilized. That heroic hedge would wear a defiant 

 smile and cheerful look as much as to say, "Don't worry, I am taking care 

 of things." Sheltered by such a compact enclosure you can raise a few 

 choice things which outside would be swept by these Hadean blasts. 



The best tree to resist drouth and heat is the Russian olive, some- 

 times called the candle tree, because the green w'ood burns more readily 

 than any other. This also has a silver foliage which makes it con- 

 spicuous. While living at Franklin in this state it outgrew all the 

 natives until it began to bear, when it bore "so heavily that the others 

 caught up with it. 



The next best heat-resisting tree is the honey locust. This grows 

 wild in the salt lands near Lincoln and in the alkali and adobe soils of 

 Pueblo it thrived without irrigation, though I advised a system of auto- 

 matic irrigation which helped out. I had a depression about the tree 

 that would hold a couple of barrels of water. Rain often came in dashes. 

 The ground declined slightly; with a hoe I made furrows which converged 

 towards the tree. Then came the dash of rain, and the little furrows 

 would pour a lot of water in the depression which would soak in and 

 nourish the tree till another shower came. The soil was so strong alkali 

 that the earth thrown out of a hole 18 inches deep looked, after a shower, 

 like a mound of snow. Another shrub is the Korean lilac. This seems 

 to pay the least attention to the heat. We keep about 50 kinds of lilac 

 bushes. Some will wilt and some will be burned. Last fall we dug a 

 large quantity and stripped off the side sprouts to plant. Some of these 

 would be three feet tall. Of course they had very little root. The sur- 

 prising thing was that almost every one grew and leaved out to the 

 very top, and they endured the fierce heat without flinching. There are 

 three kinds of these Koreans, the red, the deep red, and the white. They 

 bloom in the greatest profusion and are completely mantled in robes of 

 splendor. The Chinese tree lilac comes next in its power of resistance. 

 At Franklin in this state after three years of drouth they blossomed in 

 great profusion, and I had a fine bouquet photographed. These trees get 

 to be 50 feet tall and a foot through. I introduced them to the west. 

 We have some seven inches through and 20 feet tall now. 



The most wonderful plant to resist the heat is the glorious iris. This 

 is the flower which will soon be at the front. Named for the goddess 

 Iris, the rainbow personified, it combines all the .sjlory of sky and earth. 

 We have over 150 sorts, and nowhere on earth have I seen so much beauty 

 packed on a piece of somber earth as in our iris garden. You have all the 

 colors of the rainbow, that marvelous tracery and blending of the most 

 exquisite tints and shadings that defy description. They give a succession 

 of bloom for two months. The housewife, instead of sending to the 

 fiorist, can go out in the garden and cut a bouquet fresh with the dew for 

 her table. They do not cringe before the heat and drouth. The phloxes 

 cry and plead for water, even the hardy peonies pine, leaves will be 

 burned on the choice shrubs, but the iris will krop on growing and mul- 



