298 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



began to ask for diamond willow, and dealers tried to supply the 

 trade. These willows were sold to farmers for fancy prices and 

 planted on the prairies of Minnesota and the Dakotas right on hun- 

 dreds of farms where this worthless shrub of a willow was growing 

 wild along the banks of every pond and water course. Nobody 

 seemed to have cared to enquire whether or not the diamond willow 

 attains the size of a tree or is long lived or is adapted to prairie 

 planting. Many a Minnesota farmer today is sick of diamond 

 willows. Such experiences as this disgust and discourage tree 

 planters, and hinder the whole movement in favor of forestry. 



The use of the white willow in Iowa is another illustration of 

 the extensive planting of a species without knowledge of its dis- 

 advantages. In the early settlement of the prairies of Iowa, the 

 farmers thought it would be good policy to plant the white willow 

 in single rows on both sides of public highways. For a few years 

 it seemed that these plantations would be a great source of profit 

 to the owners, but now one hears only condemnation of the white 

 willow where it was so popular twenty years ago. To be sure, it 

 thrives, but it has become a nuisance in many ways. Its roots stop 

 up the tile drains ; it shades the roads so densely that the surface 

 moisture does not easily dry out, and mud holes are now common 

 where the roads were always good before the planting of the trees ; 

 it causes snowdrifts to fill up the highways. 



The one mental attitude which is responsible for more failures 

 in tree planting than all other causes combined is the desire for 

 rapid growing species. The willow grows very rapidly, hence it 

 appeals to the pioneer planter. The cottonwood, box elder and 

 silver maple are trees very similar in behavior. They have been 

 planted in western Minnesota, Iowa and the Dakotas far too often 

 for profit. For the first few years they grow very rapidly on almost 

 any kind of soil. If planted on upland with a stifif clay subsoil, 

 these species begin to become stag-headed when about twenty years 

 old, and in twenty years more the plantation is usually dead, and 

 only its remnants are left to disfigure the farm. 



Instead of demanding that a species be a rapid grower, the 

 planter should ask that its growth be long continued, though it may 

 be slow. The greatest forces in nature move slowly, silently and 

 often unnoticed. With living creatures it is generally true that the 

 most ostentatious lead an ephemeral existence, while the unpre- 

 tentious species live on and thrive after their fast competitors have 

 perished and been forgotten. This is just as true of trees. Min- 

 nesota planters who contemplate the establishment of permanent 

 plantations on the prairies should consider the merits of such frugal 



