GROWING APPLE SEEDLINGS. ; 223 
The President: It seems to me the more mixing up there is 
the more likely the plants will have a tendency to throw sports, and 
a great many of our best varieties of plants and flowers of every 
kind have come from sports that are distinctly different from any- 
thing allied to them. 
SOME DESIRABLE THINGS FOR PRAIRIE PLANTING. 
IL. R. MOYER, MONTEVIDEO. 
“Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, you may aye be sticking in a 
tree; it will be growing, Jock, when ye are sleeping.’”’—Scott. 
One needs to travel but a little way in the prairie portion of our state to 
see that a general knowledge of the trees and shrubs adapted to prairie 
planting is still deplorably lacking. The weary, monotonous succession of 
Box Elder and Cottonwood groves, alternating with Willow windbreaks, seems 
to indicate that the average prairie planter has not as yet heard of the great 
wealth of native and introduced trees and shrubs so well adapted to his 
wants. It is true that the graceful Elm and the shining leafed Green Ash are 
sometimes planted; but these trees on the prairie are so exceptionally rare as 
to make it seem probable that the prairie tree planter has never fully realized 
their adaptibility to his needs. 
Speaking of the Elm family, there is probably no tree better adapted 
to deep, rich prairie lands than our native White Elm (Ulmus americana). 
Where the soil is drier and thinner no tree seems to be more at home than 
our sturdy native Cork Elm (Ulmus racemosa). This tree does not exhibit 
the pendulous grace of the White Elm, but shows a somewhat rugged, al- 
most stiff top, similar to a Bur Oak. The leaves are large, and when the’ 
tree is in its full summer foliage it makes a grand appearance. The Slip- 
pery Elm (Ulmus pubescens) may be also grown with success on the prai- 
ries but should be treated as a large shrub. Perhaps the Elm family does not 
possess a finer tree nor one better adapted to prairie planting than the 
Hackberry (Celtis occidentalis). This is a common tree in all the native 
groves throughout the prairie regions of our state. When grown in the 
open it makes one of the most graceful of trees. Its summer foliage is very 
dense and luxuriant, almost tropical in its profusion. In the winter no de- 
ciduous -tree presents a finer spray. Seen against a winter sky, few trees 
have a finer appearance. The many-divided, slender branchlets possess a 
grace and beauty all their own, scarcely equalled by any other tree. 
The Oak family gives us the Bur Oak (Quercus macrocarpa). This tree, 
one of the grandest oaks, grows on bluff sides and in deep ravines through- 
out the prairie region. No tree that can be planted on the prairies will be 
less likely to disappoint the tree planter. 
The Ash family gives us the Green Ash (Fraxinus lanceolata), a tree 
that nowhere flourishes in so great a degree as on the prairies. Had the 
-groves on the dry prairies of Minnesota been planted with Green Ash in- 
stead of Cottonwood there would not have been so many discouraged tree 
planters in that region.- The Ash family, too, gives us the Lilac, a shrub of 
foreign origin, that is nowhere more at home than on the prairies. The 
common Lilac (Syringa vulgaris), in both its purple and white forms, as 
well as in its several garden varieties, is very valuable for windbreaks and 
