FOItKSr riM'^KS. 



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laws, the fac;i that 1 purvhased railroad land on tiftpon years time with 

 six per cent interest at $8 per acre, indicates that conditions were very 

 different from what we find them now. In that early day land did not 

 represent an investment of more than $10 to $20 per acre. Tt was the 

 common feeling that shelter belts were needed and investments in forest 

 trees for such purposes a legitimate and necessary expense. Away back 

 in those days the demand for forest seedlings of varieties suited to the 

 growth of wind-breaks and shelter belts formed an inrportant portion 

 of the nursery trade. 



rt was easy for the nurseryman to get hundreds of bushels of ash 

 seed along our streams and many millions of ash seedlings were grown 

 and supplied to the trade at very moderate prices. Seeds of the soft 

 maple and box-elder could be gathered along the rivers. The low cost 

 at which seed of the ash, maple and box-elder could be secured led to 

 their production in nursery row and offering them to intending planters 

 at prices below the present cost of production. I well remember that 

 one season I grew^ thirteen million forest seedlings and that number 

 was so far below the demand of my trade that I purchased five million 

 more of the neighboring nurseryman. 



In the early eighties the Russian mulberry was . introduced and mil- 

 lions were sold to Ihe planting public. A little later Catalpa speciosa was 

 very freely grown and its merits as a timber tree were freely discussed, 

 leading to free planting of this excellent variety of timber. I remember 

 in our contract work, planting 2,000,000 catalpa, about 2,000,000 Russian 

 mulberry, 3,000,000 ash, box-elder and black locust on timber claims. 

 At that time we were without experience in regard to the proper limits 

 of the safe planting of Catalpa speciosa and of the Russian mulberry. 

 Statements were freely made that the Catalpa speciosa was hardy as 

 far north as northeastern Iowa; that being true, in good faith nursery- 

 men advised their customers to plant the catalpa in central and western 

 Nebraska. 



T remember in those days of carrying samples of Russian mulberry 

 cut from a mulberry tree grown in Hamilton county, the height of the 

 tree twenty-five feet, the diameter of the section ten inches, the tree 

 twelve years old. Believing that the mulberry would be useful in grow- 

 ing a quick shelter belt and ultimately post timber, in common with 

 other nurserym.en I felt safe in recommending Russian mulberry in 

 western Nebraska. In process of time we all learned that trees like 

 the catalpa and Russian mulberry were indigenous to climates or longer 

 seasons than we have in western Nebraska, where they are liable to be 

 yet unripe when the first autumnal freezing cold wave comes down on us 

 from the northwest, sometimes in September, nearly always in October 

 before the trees have yet completed their seasonal growth. This killed the 

 terminal buds, the unripe wood and over large sections of western 

 Nebraska and eastern Colorado caused the catalpa and Russian mulberry 

 to be more frequently a heavy bush, rarely a timber tree. In this connec 

 tion I may say that in the park at .Tulesburg, in northeastern Colorado, 



