ror 



orestry. 



TREES FOR THE FARM AND HOME. 



Extract from an address by Col. John H. Stevens, president of the Minnesota 

 State Agricultural Society, and president of the State Forestry Association 

 delivered at the Farmers Institute, Montevideo, 188S: 



We should plant trees: 



First — for the ornamentation of the farm. I feel confident that I 

 am addressing- myself to an intelligent and appreciative class of 

 inen, who will be willing to admit this idea for its true value to 

 them on their farms. You know that yovir farms are worth more for 

 your efforts at improving and beautifying- them, not only for market 

 but also for your own personal use. You know that they will sell 

 readier, and that they will bring you more money when sold for the 

 beautiful trees that are planted upon them. You yourself would 

 not take much money to have those trees removed that your own 

 hands have planted and you have watched with care. In all our 

 sterner thoughts of life, we cannot afford to altogether ignore the 

 beautiful in nature and the beautiful in art. To you "A thing of 

 beauty is a joy forever" as well as to the rest of humanity, who are 

 even now panting for the beautiful. Again, "Life without beautj^ 

 is a dead and unwholesome thing," and "Trees are fit to minister to 

 inan's manly sense of beauty." These are the modern expressions 

 of the deep and hidden sense of the beautiful lying under our sterner 

 natures, and which are so successfully ministered to by the grand 

 and majestic beaut}^ of the living- plant or tree. The man who could 

 pitch the dwelling designed for the abode and resting place of his 

 family in a dreary and open field, treeless and flowerless, is a long 

 way behind the aesthetics of the age, if he is content to leave it so; 

 he has spent the foregoing part of his life for nothing, and has 5'et 

 everything to learn respecting the beauty of this life. We know 

 that men are alive to their best interests, and that they must and 

 will plant trees around their farms and their homes for beaut}' and 

 for vise. Everywhere we see encouraging examples of movement in 

 this direction, and much may thej^ be extended. 



THE HOMES OF THE BIRDS. 



Second — Trees are the homes and meeting places of the birds. 

 Every farmer in our vast country will at once see and recognize the 

 force of this proposition. Birds are the children of the air, and 

 lodge among the branches of our trees. If there arc no trees with 

 their wealth of beautiful branches on our place, we can have no 

 birds. If there are no birds, there is no restraint upon the millions 

 of devouring insects that are ever ready to prey upon the crops tliat 

 the honest farmer needs for his bread and his money. So the rela- 

 tion between the tree planting and the farmer's pocket is established 

 and is intimately close — closer, indeed, than some of us are aware of. 

 Let us remember that most of the small and beautiful birds that 

 warble among the branches of our trees are insect-eating birds, and 

 are our most intimate and devoted friends, ever working for our in- 



