216 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIEl'Y. 



may cost you ten dollars per hundred if you get some twice 

 transplanted. You should get them at half that if you could 

 raise your own seedlings. Plant them and take the best of care 

 of them. People have a wrong idea of evergreens. They watch 

 them as they grow. It is all done in four to six weeks. They 

 make a push of a foot or so outward and upward, and you say 

 they have got' through for the season. By no means. If they 

 have a good chance they begin a vigorous root growth in August 

 and keep it up all the fall. They must do this. They must lay 

 vitality in store for those needles. It takes a good deal to sus- 

 tain them, and then they must have a pow^erful reserve for that 

 spring push when they shoot up so rapidly and stop, so the 

 tree must have care all the while till it is well established. It 

 is strange in this bleak country that people do not plant ever- 

 green shelters for stock. Plant two rows of Austrians so as to 

 break joints. Put them eight or ten feet apart around a half 

 acre and what a fine shelter for cattle. In our dry win- 

 ters, most of the time these trees would give ample protection. 

 They would be vastly ahead of the wire fence so generally used 

 for shelter. In one season the farmer would save enough to 

 pay for his grove twice over. It takes but a little while to se- 

 cure this shelter. Plant good strong trees, and when fairly 

 established they will grow eighteen to twenty-four inches a 

 year. If you put them ten feet apart their branches will soon 

 come together and in a short time you have a splendid shelter. 

 Wliat are the people thinking of? Have the farmers all turned 

 Adventists or Milorites, and think the world will be wound up 

 in a year or two? I think any responsible scientist would agree 

 to insure for a millenium at least. Most of us believe there 

 will be another century added to this, and with this belief it will 

 be well to be getting ready for it. 



I think that there are a good many evergreens that will do 

 fairly well. The Jack pine is all right for timber, but is worth- 

 less as an ornamental tree because it cannot ornament, it soon 

 begins to bear cones, and the cones will cling to the tree till 

 others come, and then they will all hang on together, and wait for 

 others and then they will all be there. For a timber tree it is 

 one of the hardiest, thriftiest and best. Only you want a man 

 with both skill and conscience to handle them. They have done 



