346 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
be preserved in our native woodsand planted with other evergreens 
by the acre on the prairie. 
Every lover of trees knows how enduring and pretty are the red 
and white cedars, They make nice hedges when kept in good trim. 
The red species, though never attaining large size in our climate, is 
the more profitable for furniture. In the early settlements of the 
state, it was cut for fence posts and fire wood, almost exterminating 
it. Why not restore this tree alongside of its counterpart, the arbor 
vitae, to be a healthful defender of stock and home and a source of 
profit? 
The white pine ranks with the “fittest.” The vast tracts of this 
species, centuries old, invited emigration hither, paving the way for 
the wonderful progress Minnesota has since made. Whileits wood 
is intrinsically valuable for a thousand and one structures, its 
stately trunk, well balanced limbs, and bluish green needles, its 
hardiness and adaptability to almost any soil, entitle it to vigilant 
preservation in our native woodlands and extensive culture on our 
prairies. 
Of the spruces, our native white spruce and the introduced Norway 
lead for hardiness in the open, but the black, or double, spruce 
raised from seeds in the nursery is prettier, and rightly managed 
survives on the prairie. A mania prevails that to ensure healthful 
growth and symmetry we must prunethem. This may be necessary 
sometimes for timber development or when transplanting to equalize 
the top-wood with the root-wood, otherwise better let well enough 
alone. Whenithas plenty of food in ground and air, room and 
sunshine, and is untouched by saw or knife, itgrows intoa perfectly 
balanced cone which noart canexcel. But the profit of the spruces 
is a weightier consideration. Their wood is in great demand for 
wood pulp to be constructed into paper and innumerable other 
utilities. In the near future spruce culture by the acre will prove 
to be the most profitable crop of the farm. Properly cared for, they 
can be cut for wood pulp when fifteen or twenty years old. 
Aside from money or esthetic considerations, we should prize the 
evergreens for their sanitary influences. The pines, cedars, spruces, 
balsams, the latter least valuable of the evergreens, are nature’s all 
cure for human ailments. Sleeping on their boughs, drinking water 
from the living springs gushing from among their roots, tinged 
with their elixir, breathing the aroma of the air they refine, are 
cheaper and surer restoratives than are known in our materia 
medica. If profit from theenterprise is precious, the healthfulness 
of the country we live in is far more precious, secured to us and 
our successors when we engage strong in evergreen culture. 
Than the evergreens, no trees better protect our plants, stock and 
homes on the wide, wide prairie. 
It is surprising what a large quantity of berries can be raised on 
a small plot of ground when highly manured and heavily mulched 
with old straw or marsh hay. I have known some small patches of 
blackberries to yield five times as many berries when treated in this 
manner as the same amount of ground not so managed. 
