54 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



provision for encouraging the planting of trees on the 

 prairies, nothing was done to tempt land owners to pre- 

 serve the native groves upon their lands. To add to the 

 destruction a succession of dry seasons drained the wet 

 lowlands which had formerly been used for pastures, and 

 they became the richest farming lands. The cattle w^ere 

 turned into the groves, to which their presence proved 

 fatal even where the owners did not assist in the process 

 of clearing. The original groves were for the most part 

 upon the slopes adjacent to streams. When they were 

 cleared away the leaf mould and fine soil, and even much 

 of the harder subsoil, were washed from the exposed sur- 

 faces into the streams. The trees no longer conserved 

 moisture and the springs disappeared; the rains swept the 

 bare hillsides, the waters rapidly descending into the 

 flooded streams during every rain storm or thaw", and the 

 streams were choked up with the materials carried from 

 the storm-swept barren slopes. Splendid groves have thus 

 been replaced by worthless farms from which even the 

 mortgage cannot be raised. That this is not the creation 

 of idle fancy is known to every one who has lived and 

 observed in the eastern and southern portions of the state 

 during the past twenty -five or thirty years. Abundant 

 examples may be found along the Iowa river above Iowa 

 City, and along every larger stream in the state. 



In the meantime the settlers on the prairies realized to 

 some extent that that which had been regarded as an 

 obstacle was in reality a blessing. They missed the shade, 

 the companionship and the protection of the trees which 

 in their eastern homes they had regarded as obstructions. 

 They planted groves for windbreaks, gave some attention 

 to improved methods of tree culture and persuaded the 

 legislature to enact laws encouraging the planting of trees. 

 Everywhere in the prairie portions of the state more or 

 less interest was manifested in the cultivation of forest 

 trees. Many of the first efforts were wholly or in part 

 unsuccessful. It soon became apparent that many of the 

 methods of tree culture practiced in the east failed in 



