EVERGREENS ON OUR WESTERN PRAIRIES. 3845 
EVREGREENS ON OUR WESTERN PRAIRIES. 
J. O. BARRETT, BROWN’S VALLEY. 
While the deciduous species of trees cast their leaves and appear 
like skeletons in the air, the evergreens are ever clothed with ver- 
dure, the more beautiful for contrast with the wintry snow. Having 
so long tested them, why are we not content with what the provi- 
dence of nature has givenus? Allthings considered, itis question- 
able whether we can get anything better than our native grown. 
One of the duties assigned our experiment station, which it is faith- 
fully discharging, is to test foreign and newly developed varieties 
from hybridized seeds, to learn if thereby the stock is improved ; 
but it is not wise for us outsiders to do this, because of extra cost 
and our lack of the necessary facilities. Asa rule, what naturally 
grows in Minnesota thus far proves to be the fittest for the situation. 
Can any man give a just reason why the jack, or pitch, pine is 
scorned as the unfit? It serves a most beneficent use in the tree 
economy. For a habitat it selects a cold, waste place and there 
generates a soil forimproved vegetation. In thick groves and rich 
soil, it grows to magnificent proportions, inviting the lumberman 
for timber. When grown on mountainous heights and gravelly 
lands, the wood is heavy and surcharged with resin,that is converti- 
ble into tar and lampblack of commerce. It is valuable for floors, 
fuel, and packing boxes. It hasalongtap-root like the ash, dipping 
down deep to find moisture, So tenacious of life isit, that, unlike 
the white pine, it throws up sprouts in the spring after the stem 
has been felled, also from the fallen trunk. A coarse, tough tree it 
is, having dense foliage with long, trailing branches. These char- 
acteristics recommend it fora strong, protective windbreak when 
planted rather thinly to produce low height and heavy trunk, with 
numerous branches interlocking. 
The Scotch pine, introduced from Scotland and ine: parts of 
Europe, is another coarse, tough tree. Like the jack pine, it will 
thrive on lands abandoned during ages of sterility. Atforty years’ 
growth, it will change a desert into a green oasis, Its foliage 
becomes thinner with age, and is not then as pretty asin young 
life. It is a fast grower, very hardy and makesa good windbreak. 
Growing in thickets to maturity, its timber constituency is by no 
means inferior. Preserved in the World’s Fair Forestry exhibit of 
1893, re-erected in the annex, on the state fair grounds, are very 
pretty specimens of this wood, presented by Mr. Dartt, who finished 
a chamber or two of his home, at Owatonna, from boards sawed 
from trees he planted on his premises and cut when about twenty 
years old. 
In the Norway, or red, pine we havea species of the same genus. 
It generally grows in clumps, occupying small tracts. Dry and 
sandy soils do not check its luxuriant growth. For towering up in 
perfect symmetry of trunk, with rather sparse foliage, it is magnifi_ 
cent. Compactin grain, knit together by resinous matter, when 
mature it makes substantial masts for vessels and planks for their 
decks, and is put to many other practical uses. It should and must 
