182 ANNUAL EEPOBT 



short to fool away any portion of it in that direction. Facts, not 

 theories, claim our attention. The fact that within the last ten 

 years hundreds of groves, containing millions of healthy, vigorous 

 young forest trees, are now growing far out in the treeless region 

 where science had preordained and doomed the work an impossi- 

 bility, must be acknowledged. The fact that young groves of for- 

 rest trees are now being successfully grown on the line of the 

 Northern Pacific railroad, away out and beyond the 100th merid- 

 ian, has also got to be admitted, science and its votaries to the 

 contrary notwithstanding. 



Where weeds and grass will grow, there also forest trees can 

 grow, and where they grow the more agriculture will succeed, and 

 the better you know how to do your work, the larger the measure 

 of your success. I am assured that I am expected to give a good 

 deal of this sort of knowing how to do it, in a few words as possible. 

 Having written and spoken so much on this matter, and time and 

 again reiterated the same instructions, it seems to me unnecessary 

 to again repeat what has been so often said by myself, but has also 

 frequently been better said by others. Like the thrice told tale, I 

 am sometimes weary with the hearing of it, and when I am asked 

 by apparently intelligent men if trees will really grow out on those 

 great prairies, I feel very much as the preacher did who, after having 

 devoted the best part of his life to the faithful preaching of the 

 gospel, was astonished one day by one of his congregation, asking 

 him if it really was a fact that Christ was dead. 



PREPARATION OF THE SOIL. 



This is the first thing to do, and is of paramount importance. 

 Unless properly done failure is the rule — success the exception. Get 

 your ground in condition to produce a rattling big corn crop, and 

 you have taken a long step in the right direction. In order to do 

 this, in commencing de novo, break the prairie sod in June. Break 

 it about three inches deep. Be vigilant and careful in this very 

 important preliminary work. See that your breaking plow is a 

 good one. Adjust it so it can't help but do good work. Keep the 

 lay sharp. Draw it out every few "bouts" by hammering- Use 

 your hammer on the lay freely and only use the file for putting on 

 the last touches. Should the ground be at all rocky, put a man 

 with pick and spade to remove the rock ahead of the breaking plow. 

 Should you make a "balk" back up and take it out. In finishing 

 up the ''land" don't leave a strip of unbroken prairie from six 

 inches to two feet wide as many do, but clean out your "dead 



