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MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 101 
etrated deep enough to get moisture to sustain life during the 
dry and the freezing season. : 
If there should not be grass enough to’ hold the ridges re- 
quired to start the white birches, grass seeds, or weeds, or 
grain of some kind, might be sown to afford shade enough to 
get the birch seedlings started. In some parts of Europe, 
where land had been abandoned for centuries on account of 
barrenness and drouths, and nothing could be grown on them, 
the government employed poor laborers and skillful natural- 
ists to direct the laborer, in growing forests again, and they 
have succeeded in re-wooding and renovating the valleys that 
had been depopulated. At first, the work was carrying clay 
on side hills and slopes, and depositing it in holes, and water- 
ing to start vegetation and tree seeds, and by following it up 
year after year have now succeeded in covering the hills with 
timber and the valleys with fruit and grain; as they have now 
more dew and rain, and the government gets well paid for the 
undertaking. | 
If any one will observe the condition of the land, and is 
acquainted with the climate, and knows one variety of tree 
from the other, he soon can have a forest. He must under- 
take it understandingly, and select varieties suited to the 
soil. In this part of the State, where there are many open- 
ings, many good pieces or young groves of timber are now seer 
where twenty or twenty-five years ago nothing but prairie 
grass and hazel bushes, and a few oak grubs were seen ; 
as the fires always burned everything down from year to 
year until the land was taken up and cultivation began; then 
the fires ceased. Now, many farmers have their fire-wood 
just from thinning these groves, and the timber is growing from 
year to year more profitable. 
We saw in some of our newspapers an article going the 
rounds in which the writer sets down the destruction of our 
pine forests at seventeen years hence, and the hard wood at a 
few years later, in this State; but if we should commence 
planting or caring for our timber lots now, no such fear would 
be necessary, for any of us here sees the groves of oak of from 
20 to 30 years growth, to be quite large already, many trees 
large enough for fence posts and other purposes. 
If agricultural enterprise should be awakened to this sub- 
ject, and artificial forests should be planted, they would be 
more profitable, as they grow much faster than the groves 
already mentioned. 
Trees grown for the wood and shelter on rich bottom lands 
- and prairies, will be needed in a short time to assist the new 
beginner, First of all, the sod has to be broken, or turned up 
in ridges, east and west, about three to five feet apart, accord- 
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