ECONOMIC VALUE OF SHELTER BELTS. 101 



and even where there is a g-rove the house and bara will be away 

 from it without any protection. I think this society can well do 

 more; it can teach those people in the woods to save the trees 

 around their homes and to plant trees where the timber has been de- 

 vastated by the axe, and teach "those new settlers that it is not 

 necessary to destroy the protection they now have, and thus they 

 can protect their homes from the cold winds of winter and the hot 

 auns of summer. 



Mr. C. L. Smith: I would like to emphasize a little bit the value of 

 this teaching. I used to be quite frequently in the southeastern 

 part of the state, particularly in the early days of the farmer's insti- 

 tute work. Brother Gregg will remetuber when we once got snowed 

 in at Grand Meadow. There were a great many people at the hotel 

 and among them were some German farmers who lived in that 

 vicinity, who did not have an evergreen or any other kind of tree 

 around their homes. I put in my time talking about the necessity 

 and the comfort of having the home protected by having a shelter 

 of evergreens, and the comfort it would be both in summer and in 

 winter. I had not been down in that district for a number of years, 

 but last fall I was down there again at the same place, which is on 

 the Chicago & Great Western road. A great, giant farmer, a Ger- 

 man, came up to me and called me by name. He said, " You do not 

 know me, but I know you. I want you to come to my home; I want 

 to show you the work you and Mr. Gregg did the time you were 

 snowed in at Grand Meadows. You recollect the Dutchman who 

 quizzed the life out of you about planting little evergreens? Well, 

 I want to show you what I have done." I went with him to his home 

 about three miles away. We drove in from the street through rows 

 of evergreens ten to fifteen rods long, and then looking out from 

 there it appeared as though the house and barn were set in a forest. 

 He told me he had put five thousand trees around his house and 

 barn. He had got little seedlings and put them out in the nursery 

 and garden and then distributed them to the German farmers in his 

 neighborhood, over 150,000 evergreens, and Mr. Scott, the banker, 

 told me he did not believe there was another neighborhood in the 

 whole northwest where there were so many farmhouses protected 

 as there were in that prairie community. That German farmer 

 learned his lesson well some thirteen or fourteen years ago. If we 

 could get one of those Germans to plant trees the rest would imitate 

 him. 



Mr. T.T. Smith: In Ihe section of country the president speaks of, 

 the farms are owned by people in town and rented. 



Mr. Clark: I want to speak of one point along this line. Some 

 twenty years ago I first visited Brainerd — ^and those of you who 

 have been there will remember that there is an open space south of 

 the depot and the business part of the town, but when I first went 

 there that was covered with a beautiful pine grove. Some two or 

 three years after they went to work and cut off all the trees. As I 

 went along from store to store I told them I thought they had done 

 an outrageous thing to cut off those trees. A few years ago they 

 started north of town and left a whole square of evergreens. They 

 became sick of not hating any trees nearer the business portion of 



