SHADE TREES FOR ORNAMENT ABOUT THE HOME. 181 



SHADE TREES FOR ORNAMENT ABOUT THE HOME. 



L. R. MOVER, MONTEVIDEO. 



About the time I bought my first village lot, I came across a copy 

 of the Forest Tree Planter's Manual, by the late Leonard B. Hodges, 

 in which he advocated planting the Cottonwood as a useful pioneer 

 tree. I was a pioneer, so I proceeded to surround my lot with a 

 row of Cottonwood trees. The ground was virgin prairie, just 

 broken, and the young trees flourished. It was not many years be- 

 fore I purchased another lot and when I had brought that within 

 my enclosure I found that I had a thrifty row of cottonwoods run- 

 ning through the middle of my premises. I dug a well in the 

 middle of the property near the row of cottonwood trees. It was 

 not long before the roots of the cottonwoods had taken possession 

 of every part of the garden, exhausting the soil moisture, so that 

 all the young apple trees that I had planted died. And then one 

 summer the well became dry. On investigation I found that the 

 roots of the cottonwood trees had gone down into the well behind 

 the brick curbing, and had filled the well full of roots and exhausted 

 the water supply. After that the cottonwoods began to die, and I 

 began to expedite the process. The mistake had been a costly one, 

 and a few sickly cottonwoods along the street front still bear testi- 

 mony to my unwisdom in planting them where they do not belong. 

 The Cottonwood is a grand tree on a river bank or in moist soil, but 

 in such a place one would scarcely care to build his house. 



You will naturally want a row of street trees in the vacant space 

 between the sidewalk and the curbstone line. In most of the prairie 

 towns of western Minnesota the Box Elder has been quite generally 

 planted for this purpose. But it, too, is very unsatisfactory. It 

 grows rapidly when young and promises well; but it soon gets its 

 full growth and ages rapidly while yet a small tree. The leaves 

 are covered every summer with innumerable aphides, and it be- 

 comes a lousy, loathsome thing. The operations of the aphides 

 cause the leaves to exude a sort of honey dew, and this attracts 

 myriads of flies of all classes and descriptions— many of them of 

 very plebeian tastes. The Box Elder is attacked, too, by the Lepto- 

 coris trivittatus, a gray bug with red markings, and towards 

 autumn great streaks and patches of these bugs may be seen con- 

 gregating on the south side of the Box Elder as well as on verandas 

 and the fronts of houses. Rumor has it that these bugs occasion- 

 ally bite people; that they injure fruit and other trees is well settled. 

 These insect enemies cause the Box Elder to drop its leaves very early 

 in the season, almost before the summer is over. This disfigures the 

 lawn and impairs the value of the Box Elder for shade. I would not 

 plant the Box Elder for street trees nor for ornamental trees about 

 the home. 



The best street tree, so far as I am able to judge, for the prairie 

 towns of western Minnesota is the White Elm (Ulmus americana). 

 This tree is native to all parts of the state, but prefers a somewhat 

 moist location. Where the soil is quite dry it might be better to 

 substitute the Cork Elm (Ulmus racemosa). This elm is native to a 



