SHELTER BELTS IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY. Bat 
together was about twelve feet, and the farthest apart about 
eighteen feet. Of course, they have been thinned out a good 
deal, so that now the trees are about thirty feet apart. If any- 
one has had an experience of a similar nature, or can point out the 
mistake or mistakes I made, or has any advice to give as to the 
treatment of that grove, I would be very glad to receive it. 
Mr. McGinnis: I do not know that I can solve the question. I 
looked at that grove with a great deal of interest during a visit I 
made there, but I made up my mind the grove was choked to death 
because he had permitted blue grass to grow around the trees, and, 
under the exceptional circumstances of the year 1894, millions of 
Minnesota forest trees were killed existing under the most favorable 
conditions. The hard mapleis a very delicate tree. The natural 
habitat of the tree is on deep muck soil in swales; that is the natural 
soil of the hard maple. Mr. Underwood’s hard maples are planted 
on a hill, and, while it is a nice thing to have blue grass, it is a vio- 
lent enemy oftrees. Blue grass is the natural enemy oftrees. If 
the ground is a sandy subsoil, the hard maples would die anywhere. 
If you go through the forests of Minnesota, you will find that the 
tops of all hard maples that grow on high ground are dead. There 
was one variety of oak, the red, that was exterminated in 1894. There 
was a forest of red oak about seventy-five miles over the line in Wis- 
consin, about forty by twenty miles; it was the finest red oak forest 
in the United States. That forest died outentirely. Every treedied 
in the summer of 1894. In the summer of 1894 the temerature was 
largely in excess of: what it should have been, and there was a low 
degree ot humidity, ‘with strong, hot winds, and it accomplished 
the death of thousands of- hard maple trees in Minnesota and 
throughout the northwest. 
Mr. Gibbs: How many years have you been raking out those 
leaves, Mr. Underwood? 
The President: We plowed and cultivated the trees thoroughly 
until they shaded the ground, and then we let the grass grow. Ido 
not know how many years the leaves have been raked up, but every 
year since the trees have been of any size. 
Mr. Gibbs: You had better let the leaves alone if you want those 
trees to grow. 
The President: So far as hard maples growing on high ground is 
concerned, we get a great deal of hard maple wood from the bluffs 
in Wisconsin, and the hard maple grows naturally on the bluffs. 
Mr. McGinnis: The rainfall is heavier north of you the higher up 
you'go, and there are some splendid: hardwood forests north of you. 
Mr. T. T. Smith: I saveda natural grove of red oak about my 
house, and I have been thinning it out for fifteen years, but for the 
_ last three or four years they have been dying out. Some of them 
are very larye oaks, and they had plenty of room,as I thought, and 
were not crowded at all, but two years ago quite a number of them 
died. I have put no fertilizing material on them. 
The President: I think it is simply a lack of moisture. The 
ground is fertile, but the red oak is killed out, as well as the elm 
and the Norway spruce—the elm is good for nothing. There area 
af 
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