aTATE HORTIOULTURAL 80CIBTT. 181 



PRACTICALLY TREELESS. 



The exceptions are portions of the coteaus in the vicinity of the 

 Sisseton reservation, the Black Hills, Turtle mountains, Pembina 

 mountains, and narrow strips and small groves along some of the 

 water courses and lakes — in comparison with the whole, hardly 

 enough to swear by. With such a neighbor adjoining and iBank- 

 ing us in the rear, I have often thought, while traversing the great 

 prairies of Dakota, that, for all practical purposes, she was a part 

 of, or, at the farthest, simply a suburb of Minnesota, and it is ex- 

 tremely difficult for a Minnesotian to discuss forestry without tak- 

 ing cognizance of Dakota as a prominent factor in the solution of 

 our own forestry questions. Not only Dakota, but her adjacent 

 neighbor, Manitoba — the Prairie Province — with the vast outlying 

 prairie region, stretching west and northwest to the feet of 

 the Rockies — all that open region through which the fierce 

 blasts of the polar regions find unobstructed passage, culminating 

 in Minnesota ''blizzards;'' and in the other direction, the vast 

 prairie arid region of the southwest, whence come the simoon-like 

 winds so withering and antagonistic to growing crops, forest cul- 

 ture and human comfort. All these are factors not to be ignored. 

 They force themselves upon you, as horticulturists, as your most 

 bitter, determined, uncompromising foes; blasting your hopes, de- 

 stroying at one sweep the results of years of patient toil, confound- 

 ing your calculations, and every now and then setting you up on 

 your beam ends in the most unexpected manner. The prairie far- 

 mer suffers from the same causes to an equal if not greater extent 

 than yourselves, and their misfortunes entail corresponding disas- 

 ters upon our commercial and manufacturing interests. Now that 

 we have finally settled up our old railroad bonded indebtedness, and 

 on a basis satisfactory to our creditors, the enemies of Minnesota 

 havenothmanget them to harp on but our climate, and even that 

 we can so modify by tree planting, as not only to "temper the 

 wind to the shorn lamb," but 



DISARM OUR ENEMIES 



of their last remaining weapon. These elemental forces are un- 

 doubtedly all right and play an important part in the economy of 

 nature. We have only to guard against them when on the ram- 

 page, and in doing this forestry is the prime factor, the central 

 figure in the whole business. I have neither time or patience to 

 even attempt to answer the puerile arguments and unfounded as- 

 sertions that trees won't grow on our western prairies. Life is too 



