60 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



sign they are needed. These pests multiply so rapidly that 

 were it not for our underground friends they would take the 

 earth. On my place, I count every mole worth |5 at least. 



The Ponderosa Pine is the best known for the West. I 

 once brought a lot of collected trees from the mountains and 

 cultivated them well the first year and then, to test them, 

 left them alone to fight their way with drought and weeds. 

 For two years it was very dry, and I do not see how a drop of 

 water could have reached the roots, and yet they made a foot 

 a yeai', and where cultivated, they grew two feet. There has 

 been a prejudice against this tree because we are told they 

 are so hard to transplant. This is because so many have 

 attempted to grow these trees pulled from the forests. The 

 trouble with the forest tree is, when you go after it, the root 

 is not at home, it is out foraging, you just get the stub. 

 Grow them according to directions and you can raise them as 

 easily as you can potatoes. Perhaps you do not wish to bother 

 with the seeds and prefer to try plants. These at one year old, 

 selected strong ones, are about |1 per hundred ; two year old 

 transplanted, |3 per hundred ; fine three year old, transplant- 

 ed, |5 per hundred. 



THE JACK PINE — PINUS DIVARICATA_, 



While young, is by far the most rapid-growing of all our 

 evergreens. There are two varieties of this tree. The eastern 

 type is a poor, bushy, stunted affair. The Northwestern 

 variety is a tree of great vigor, and in its native forests is 

 packed and crowded like the Pinus Contorta of the Yellow- 

 stone, which is a field of masts crowded thickly together. 

 This tree is now in great demand for railroad ties. In a trip 

 to the North I saw thousands of them beside the track which, 

 having had a treatment of creosote, were made quite durable, 

 and the amount that could be secured from an acre was some- 

 thing Avonderful. This tree grows rapidly on any kind of 

 soil. I have known them to make two and one-half feet a 

 year on a clay bank, without cultivation. 



