EVERGREENS. 57 



completely cooked by the siroccos. I heard an instructor 

 say, "You give the trees the forest conditions by planting them 

 close together as they grow in the Black Hills and you can 

 raise evergreens anywhere in Nebraska." Perhaps, if you 

 could elevate the country 4000 feet and spread the Black 

 Hills' climate over it, but you can not with present con- 

 ditions unless you take trees adapted to the locality. This 

 can easily be done. Most of the eleven kinds of Colorado 

 evergreens will do well on the plains. The Ponderosa and 

 Pinon Pines, the Brown and Silver Cedars, grow with the 

 least moisture of any trees. The Ponderosa propagates itself 

 on bald bluffs where nothing else will grow and it would 

 probably have covered all our northern and western plains 

 had it not been for the fires. They have saved themselves by 

 perching like the cliff"-dwellers beyond the reach of danger 

 where they wave defiance while they cling to the sides of 

 precipices or from almost inaccessible hilltops away from the 

 reach of the fires. There is probably not a section of land 

 on our western plains that might not be covered with these 

 thrifty and heroic trees. When their character is known and 

 people understand the ease with which they can be grown, our 

 semi-arid regions will be filled with groves and windbreaks 

 which will check the fury of the hot winds and make dry 

 farming a signal success. 



THEIR PROPAGATION. 



You can raise them by the thousand as easily as you can 

 peas. I am emphasizing this for this pine is the hope of the 

 plains, and when I am gone people will remember what I say 

 and benefit by my experiments. Nurserymen, and myself 

 among them, have been on the wrong track. We did not un- 

 derstand this pine, and we treated it like other evergreens, 

 planting under screens, and they resented it. They did not 

 want any coddling ; when covered they would damp off badly. 

 In making a trip to the Black Hills, I saw a fine patch of 



