404 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



TREE PLANTING IN SOUTHWEST MINNESOTA. 



ALFRED TERRY, SLAYTON. 



A great deal of tree planting has been done in the course of the 

 last two or three years in southwest Minnesota, and with the young 

 forest trees delivered at the farms for $2.00 per thousand, there is no 

 doubt that forestry is but in its infancy on these prairies, for to plant 

 trees costing but $2.25 per acre should encourage the people to go 

 ahead with forestry; and, that being the case, we look for a great 

 modification of the climate. The planting of Cottonwood trees is 

 nearly at an end, for the higher they grow the less shelter they give, 

 and, unless planted on low, moist ground, they generally die when 

 about ten to twenty years old, but, on the contrary, other forest 

 trees make fine shelter at six years old and continue to increase in 

 value and beauty all their lives. The box elder, the soft maple and 

 elm are the three principal forest trees grown, but to these we can 

 add the black walnut, the butternut, the catalpa and ash, and if 

 planted in a grove four feet apart in the row and the rows eight feet 

 apart, running east and west, cultivated as long as it can be done 

 with horse power, a fine, healthy shelter grove is obtained. This 

 kind of planting is being done more and more, and as the groves 

 need thinning out, land owners are transplanting and putting fine 

 rows of trees along their fences. 



In consequence of the very dry seasons of the last few years, many 

 young trees of about ten years old, generally of the soft maple 

 variety, have died. No other cause than drouth has been thought 

 of here. They die limb by limb. 



The box elder is certainly the best nurse tree, and in a grove 

 should be planted at about the ratio of three to one of all the other 

 trees. Alongside it the ash and elm grow luxuriantly. We find 

 that the elm is slow of growth at first, but after about the fourth 

 year it begins to grow as rapidly as any other tree and seems, to be 

 as free from disease as any of the above named. With the amount 

 of moisture that has fallen, we strongly recommend our land owners 

 to plant out shelter groves, not for the house only but for their 

 cattle. 



Those who have handled cattle and shipped them, all testify that 

 the cattle that are raised and wintered in sheltered groves are a 

 finer, cleaner lotto take to market than are those that are wintered on 

 the open prairie without shelter. And to those who would go more 

 extensively into forestry for the sake of the beauty it adds to their 

 homes, we would advise them to surround their trees, or rather 

 groves, with such shrubs as the Japan privet, the syringa, the lilac, 

 the snow ball and many others. These can be bought cheaply if 

 bought in quantities. Why not do it at once? If it is true "there is 

 no place like home," then make it like a home! 



Since making the foregoing report, a great calamity has befallen 

 our artificial groves and street trees. A genuine "Scotch" mist fell 

 on the night of the 24th of November, 1896, and increased into a rain, 

 freezing on the trees all the time until on this Thanksgiving morn 

 (26th) they are covered with a heavier coat of ice than I have ever 



