226 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
quickly as possible, otherwise if he wants to make a success of his 
plantation he has got to work long years to do it. As soon as the 
the shade gets over the ground, the trees will take care of them- 
selves, and the grass will not grow. Three or four feet apart for a 
forestry plantation would be about the distance I should plant ina 
dry climate. I have noticed this: in some young plantations there 
are some of the trees that are a great deal stronger than others; you 
can see the process of nature by which they thin themselves, and 
no matter how thick they are they will take care of themselves. 
Mr.Clarence Wedge: Mr. President, I feel like endorsing what 
Mr. McGinnis has said about close planting. I want to add one 
thing which I think he omitted to state, that after a tree is large 
enough to shade the ground, or really before that, it should be 
provided with some sort of underbrush, to form a sort of forest 
floor, which seems to be one of the most important things in grove 
planting, something that will hold the leaves in place and make a 
natural forest floor that is cool and moist. I think for this purpose 
hazel brush might be used, and the redraspberry. I haveseen that. 
flourish in groves, even of cottonwood. While I am up I will say 
that it is frequently argued against this close planting that the 
cottonwood is a failure where planted close, but where planted in 
rows the cottonwood is a success. I think we ought to make a differ- 
ence between the trees as to which of two classes trees belong. All 
such trees as the willow, cottonwood, soft maple, box elder and, 
indeed, all the poplar family, belong to that class, will not endure 
very close planting, but the ash and the elm and all of our better 
and most durable trees will endure closer planting when young, 
and they will naturally thin themselves without the axe. 
The President: I have met with a good deal ‘of disappointment 
along this line, and perhaps some of the friends can advise me what 
to do. One of the most interesting features of my home is a grove, 
near the house, which was planted by Dr. Jewell, who obtained the 
trees of Mr. Elliot. The trees were planted in natural order, just as 
you would find them in the forest, in an irregular manner. The 
grove has been a beautiful feature of our home for many years, but 
now it is dying out. The tops of a good many of the trees are dead, 
and some of the trees have been killed altogether. I have cut outa 
good many, and I will have to cut more out, I suppose. A part of 
the ground is level, but a little of it, which is somewhat gravelly 
slopes off to the northeast, so it is drained off pretty easily; and the 
soil isa loam, a sandy loam, a good rich soil with a clay subsoil; it 
is our strongest soil. I thought the trees on that ground would 
stand forever, but I am meeting with this experience. I do not 
think that there is a great deal of water that gets into the ground, at 
least a great deal of it runs off. I thought this fall I would not rake 
up the leaves in that grove, andIleftthem. They make a splendid 
covering for roses, and our gardeners like to rake them up for that 
purpose. Some of the trees are hard maple,and the leaves are 
very nice for that purpose, but this fall I stopped the men 
and told them I wanted the leaves to remain there. I think 
I planted the trees too close. The nearest the trees were 
