424 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



had not succeeded in keeping alive any trees or shrubbery on the 

 high, flat prairies. The only place that we saw any trees after we 

 left the older settlement along the Missouri and James rivers was 

 around some lake or along some stream or in some deep ravine, 

 protected from the sweeping winds by some friendly hill or bluff. 

 In fact, the writer has noticed repeatedly as he has traversed the 

 northwestern country in the semi-arid and arid belts that about 

 the only place that timber is found to any extent is among the hills 

 and bluffs, showing conclusively that even our rugged, hardy native 

 trees which we design for protection to our tenderer crops and stock 

 will not get above babyhood without being shielded by some hill, 

 blufif, ravine or the kind hand of some lover of trees. The Black 

 Hills of South Dakota derived their name from their dark or black 

 appearance in the distance, which is nothing more or less than the 

 deep green of the pine and spruce timber on the hillsides which 

 are seen by the traveler through many miles of smoky atmosphere. 

 It is my opinion that these trees would never have been there had 

 it not been for the hills; had they not protected the tiny little seed- 

 lings in their infancy against the constant chafing, destructive, arid 

 winds. It is, in fact, almost impossible for any tender vegetation to 

 survive and live through its childhood days without being cared for 

 or protected from the winds, and the south winds are much more 

 destructive and parching in our locality than the winds from any 

 other direction, because: first, they become hot and dry in passing 

 over nearly a thousand miles of a hot, dry and treeless country that 

 lies south of us ; and, second, a south wind brings warmth with it, 

 thereby stimulating a more rapid growth, which draws more rapidly 

 upon the water supply, which very often is inadequate for the de- 

 mand that is made upon it ; hence, the tender vegetation is burned 

 because moisture could not be procured fast enough. 



Oftentimes we have noticed that our crops suffer very severely 

 from drought by a two or three days strong wind when we had 

 thought that the ground contained plenty of moisture and that the 

 crops were doing well. 



In the twenty-four summers that the writer has been in South 

 Dakota, he has noticed that the most hazardous times for the crops 

 have been when there have been the most winds and especially south 

 winds. In the dry summer of 1894 when crops were in many in- 

 stances literally parched, when much of the corn throughout South 

 Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas was not worth husking, simply be- 

 cause the tassal was burned, destroying the pollen before fertiliza- 

 tion took place, we took particular notice that about the only fields 

 of corn that amounted to anything were those that were protected 



