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winter following was a strip from six to ten rods in width along the west side of the 

 field, where it was protected by a tall Osage Orange hedge, and the snow which the hedge 

 had intercepted and lodged upon it. 



At harvest this strip yielded about eighteen bushels per acre — the remainder of the 

 field nothing. At corn-planting time we had been tempted to plough up all this strip, 

 but concluded to wait the outcome ; but it was never worth cutting. 



The value of this protection to the young wheat plants, which secured a partial crop 

 on this occasion, might not be so obvious another year. With a more favourable winter 

 they might be able to get on without it. But the shelter these hedges afford to farm 

 animals will commend them in every year and in all seasons. I have upon this farm 

 long lines of hedges that will turn any sort of farm stock. Upon the roadside it is kept 

 at a height of four to five feet by one annual cutting in April or September. The rest of 

 it has never been cut and most of this is twenty to twenty-five feet in height, with few 

 gaps or weak places. 



I never had any patience with the fellows who delight in telling me that my "hedges 

 occupy too' much room." When I commenced improving this farm it was all room — not 

 a tree or shrub upon a thousand acres ; and to-day with twenty acres in orchards, with 

 seven miles of hedges, with a few acres in groves of forest trees, I haven't a single twig 

 too much — not half enough — to meet what is an equitable requirement that I should con- 

 tribute my share toward the amelioration of the climate in winter, for the favouring of 

 rain-fall in summer, and for reasonable forethought and provision for those who are to 

 come after me. 



Those who are apparently so covetous of the little ground that my trees and hedges 

 occupy can generally find upon their own farms undrained lands, unbroken and unpro- 

 ductive prairie, much greater in extent, which they have never yet found time to bring 

 to profitable uses. I doubt if I have any land that pays me so well, even now, as that 

 which is occupied by these tall hedges and wind-breaks. I have in mind two fields of 

 twenty and forty acres, each well set in Kentucky blue-grass, their summer growth kept 

 till the frosts came, making a thick soft covering, so that one might imagine that he was 

 " walking upon a feather bed " as he passed over them. Our young Shorthorn steers 

 were taken to these fields at the beginning of winter. The tall thick hedges upon every 

 side enable them to shelter themselves, no matter from what quarter the wind may blow, 

 and they do not seem to realize that 



" The melancholy days have come, " 



but they apply themselves diligently to the freshest of the blue-grass, and grow fat. This 

 is the 21st day of February, and they have not yet been out of their pastures. Occasion- 

 ally, upon a stormy day, they have been offered hay, which, for the most part, has been 

 contemptuously rejected. Later in the season we shall give them a daily ration of corn 

 and fresh pasture next summer, and before we realize it they will go upon the market as 

 "export cattle." 



Now, my dear friend and preceptor, I am sure you can make it clear to the 

 Convention that this pleasant way of farming is not practicable upon the open prairie 

 fenced with harhed wire, and, if you do, it will be my apology for drifting away from the 

 particular subject of your inquiry. 



Very truly yours, 



L. B. Wing. 



P.S. But, my dear sir, after the " Forestry Congress " shall have considered the subject 

 of hedge planting and the extension and preservation of our woodlands upon climatic con- 

 siderations, I hope the members will not fail to express themselves in regard to our 

 national protective duty upon Canadian lumber. It is a strange policy to encourage the 

 mowing down of our own forests by a duty upon logs and lumber brought across the 

 lakes for the use of our people. The theory of protection in general is that it increases 

 home production ; this duty destroys the home production. Each year's cutting of our 

 pine timber is now well ascertained in its extent, and the time when our supply will be 



