TREE PLANTING ON MINNESOTA PRAIRIES. 3O3 



to plant on his bluegrass lawn and is willing to pay a good, round- 

 price for the operation of transplanting which such trees need pre- 

 liminary to the endurance of hard and unnatural environmental con- 

 ditions ; but these people are not all the people in the world who want 

 to plant trees. Minnesota farmers ought to plant millions of forest 

 trees where the city people plant scores, and they will plant in the 

 future by the millions if the growers will put the cost of this planting 

 within their reach. If the present lack of consideration for the needs 

 of farmer tree planters continues in Minnesota and the Dakotas for 

 the next two decades, state nurseries will be established for the grow- 

 ing of coniferous forest seedlings at reasonable rates. If the 

 nurserymen of the northwest are willing that this great opportunity 

 for business should slip out of their hands and be absorbed by the 

 state, the best way for them to bring this about is to continue the 

 attitude of ignoring the forest planter. 



Cost and Profits of Planting. — An acre of forest can be planted 

 with 1,500 seedlings of the common deciduous species for $10.00 or 

 even less, counting nursery stock and labor. Whenever the farmer 

 can plant evergreens for the same price, coniferous plantations will 

 be the rule in Minnesota. Instead of the farm plantation consisting 

 of willow, soft maple and box elder, valuable, long-lived species 

 will be used. 



It seems that at this point it would be well to cite what can be 

 accomplished in the production of planted coniferous forests on your 

 western prairies. A planted grove of European larch near Clear 

 Lake, S. D., a few miles across the Minnesota line, was measured 

 in the fall of 1901. The plantation had just completed its sixteenth 

 summer's growth, having been established in May, 1886, by the 

 planting of seedlings shipped from England. At the present time 

 the nursery stock from which these trees were grown would cost 

 about $10.00 per thousand. No record of the prices that were paid 

 at that time are available, as the owner kept none. The labor of 

 planting was largely done by the plow, the ground having been 

 furrowed out and the trees set in the furrows. It is safe to estimate 

 that the total expense of estabHshing this plantation should not have 

 been greater than $20.00 per acre. At the time that it was made 

 the land which it occupies was worth about $10.00 per acre, so that 

 the total investment can be reckoned at $30.00 per acre. 



In 1901 this plantation had produced 1,054 first class and 1,139 

 second class fence posts per acre. Assigning the current value for 

 fence posts prevailing at that time in that part of South Dakota, this 

 grove was worth net $229.00 per acre. If compound interest be 

 allowed at five per cent on the investment from the time of the estab- 



