28o secretary's corner. 



"Horticulture in the North." — Under this title appears* seventy-two 

 page, neatly bound paper covered book written by D W. Buchanan, of St. 

 Charles, Man., a guide to fruit growing in the prairie provinces of Canada. It 

 has a good table of contents and seems to cover quite effectively the subject of 

 fruit growing in that region. It contains also a short article on trees, shrubs 

 and other plants adapted to that section. 



Mixing Varieties in the Windbreak. — "The secret in planting trees is 

 to mix varieties. For instance, I planted together, willow, ash, soft maple 

 and Cottonwood, the cottonwood all died years ago. They fulfilled their work 

 in shading the ash and maple, which require protection in order to make 

 straight and thrifty trees. All of these trees are in the swine lot, and the 

 swine have access to them, making ideal conditions." W. T. Warren, Wood- 

 stock. 



Who Has Bearing Nut Trees in Minnesota? — Inquiries often reach 

 this office for fresh nuts from trees of butternut, hickory and walnut. Of 

 course that means from Minnesota trees, and if any of our members have any 

 that they can spare if they would let the secretary know he could announce 

 it in the Secretary's Corner, and in that way they would be distributed into 

 the hands of others who would like to test them. That is one way to widen 

 the field of work of the horticultural society, and a good one too. 



The Norw^ay Poplar a Valuable Tree. — "My Norway poplar planted 

 from cuttings twenty-three years ago are about sixty-five feet high and 

 measure thirty-eight inches around, two feet from the ground. Cotton woods 

 alongside of them mostly died years ago, planted at the same time. The 

 Norway poplar does quite well on high ground where the willow will not 

 succeed well and are unsatisfactory. These trees fulfill more nearly forest 

 conditions than any others I have." W. T. Warren, Woodstock. 



The Timber Supply.— "Every person in the United States is using over 

 six times as much wood as he would use if he were in Europe. The country 

 as a whole consumes every year between three or four times more wood than 

 all of the forests of the United States grow in the meantime. The average 

 acre of forest lays up a store of only 10 cubic feet annually, whereas it ought 

 to be laying up at least 30 cubic feet in order to furnish the products taken 

 out of it. Since 1880 more than 700,000,000,000 feet of timber have been cut 

 for lumber alone, including 80,000,(X)0,000 feet of coniferous timber in excess 

 of the total coniferous stumpage estimate of the Census in 1880." These are 

 some of the remarkable statements made in Circular 97 of the Forest Service- 

 which deals with the timber supply of the United States and reviews the 

 stumpage estimates made by all the important authorities. 



Varieties of Trees for Street Planting. — In the city of Minneapolis 

 there is an ordinance in existence prohibiting the planting of boi elders and 

 cottonwoods on the public streets, and it is well that the attention of the 

 planters in that city and elsewhere in the state should be called to this fact, 

 as there varieties of trees are not desirable for that purpose. The favorite 

 shade tree is the white elm, and there is nothing better, especially if the 

 trees planted have been grown from seed of some choice type of the elm or 

 have been raised from grafts of some especially handsome type — which latter 

 method of propagation is now being carried on by some of the more progres- 

 sive nurserymen of the country. The hackberry, which is near enough like 

 the elm to be called its first cousin, is also a desirable street tree, making an 

 even closer shade than the elm, but cottonwood, box elder, soft maple and all 

 other brittle-wooded trees should be discarded for this purpose. 



