374 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



against the winds will to a certain degree protect the country- 

 lying to the leeward of it; that country so sheltered will not 

 dry out so much. 



There is another experiment that has been tried as to the 

 actual amount of rainfall, as between the forest or open prairie, 

 near Nancy, France. There was a decided difference. It was 

 found that during the spring there was 13 per cent., 23 per 

 cent, in August and 21 per cent, in October more rainfall in the 

 w^oods than there was in the exposed country. I know of no 

 reason why we should doubt this; everything seems to accord 

 with common sense and reason. We have heard the statement 

 made here that the amount of rainfall in Minnesota has not 

 changed since the country was opened for settlement, and that 

 the destruction of the woods has no effect on the rainfall. The 

 gentleman who made that statement did not stop to think of 

 the thousands of acres that have been put under cultivation. 

 Now, we have acres and acres of grain that sends down its 

 roots to the water and brings it up to the air, and that to some 

 extent certainly compensates us for the loss of our forests 

 about us. 



Mr. Dartt: When I settled in Wisconsin a good many years 

 ago the fires ran all over that country. When the fires stopped 

 new growths sprung up. and twenty years afterwards there 

 was more growth there than when it was first settled. There 

 is this about it, when that good time comes when we shall need 

 no timber for building purpose, we can save all of our trees 

 together and thus save the moisture, and now I think that is a 

 sufficient reason why we should not be very much alarmed. 



Mr. P. B. Walker: It had occurred to me to supplement my 

 paper with a few remarks, but perhaps there has been enough 

 said on the subject. (Cries of "Go on," " Go on.") I think it 

 is perfectly safe to say that I have had the largest experience 

 west of the Mississippi River of any man in this room. I have 

 spent over half a century west of the Mississippi. My early 

 youth was spent in western Missouri, and during my boyhood 

 with my father in journeying over the treeless plains of Kan- 

 sas, Nebraska, western Missouri, Indian Territory and Texas. 

 I grew up in that country, and in my earlier manhood it was 

 my fortune to roam nearly over all the country lying between 

 northern Iowa and the chaparral country of Texas, and even 

 beyond that. After I grew up to manhood, I traveled over the 

 same plains I had traveled over first when a boy with my 



