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MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 51 
is received. We have not had time, in this new county, to report results, 
and any facts I might furnish would not therefore be of much practical val- 
ue. I could give theories and opinions innumerable from both practical 
and impractical men, but suppose you do not want these. Here are the 
main facts concerning tree culture in this county: 
1. The people are thoroughly alive to the importance of tree planting, 
and there is scarcely a claim, or a farm, upon which there is not already 
from one to ten acres started. A great many tree claims have been taken, 
and hundreds of acres will be planted next season. H 
2. Last year was avery poor year for trees. The streets of Worthing- 
ton were lined with soft maples from two to five years old, on Arbor Day, 
and most of these lived and were doing well when winter set in. It is wor- 
thy of note that those which were watered and mualched have dune best. 
Tens of thousands of white willow and cottonwood cuttings were set last 
spring, and I judge that hundreds of acres were planted with soft maple 
seed, but probably not one seed or one cutting in a thousand came, owing 
to the dry weather. IT planted about twenty acres with soft maple seed, and 
about two acres with cottonwood and white willow cuttings, and have noth- 
ing to show for it. The grasshoppers cut off the few soft maples which 
sprouted, and the cuttings dried up in the ground. 
8. I made a discovery with box-elder seed which is probably worth men- 
tioning. During the winter of 1872-3, we sold from the Colony Office, for 
other parties, quite a quantity of box-elder seed, which were planted 
throughout the county. Very few of the seeds sprouted, and there was a 
general complaint at the apparent worthlessness of the seed. Most of those 
who planted plowed up the ground used and prepared it for other crops My 
ground was left unmolested until the spring of 1874, when, what was my 
surprise, to find the little box elders pushing through the ground by hun- 
dreds after having lain over one season! 
4. There are several groves in this county which have been remarkably 
successful. One of these was planted by the Railroad Company, for a snow- 
break, about two miles west of town. Some 1,500 cottonwood and Euro- 
pean larches were set in alternate rows in the summer of 1873. Last fall I 
took a stroll through this grove, and found many of the cottonwoods from 
ten to fifteen feet high, and the larches doing well. Two years more will 
furnish a grove at this point ample enough to accommodate any pic-nic par- 
ty which Worthington imay send out. 
5. Esquire Brown, of Graham Lakes, in this county, claims to have had 
uniform success in tree culture. He prepares his ground thoroughly, and is 
very careful in the treatment of settings and cuttings. He gathers cuttings 
in the fall of the year, ties them in bundles of convenient size, and sets 
them on end upon the damp ground of his cellar during the winter, and then 
plants as early in the spring as possible. 
Call on us for a report two or three years hence, and we shall be able to 
give you some astonishing results, for our peovle are awake to the import- 
ance of tree culture. 
Yours, etc., A. P. MILumr. 
REPORT ON FOREST CULTURE ON THE MAIN LINE FIRST DIVISION ST. P. & 
P. R. R., AND A PORTION OF THE COUNTRY TRIBUTARY THERETO.—PRE- 
PARED FOR THE MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY.—BY L. B. 
HODGES, SUPT. OF TREE PLANTING DEPARTMENT. 
Forest tree culture on this line was commenced in the spring of 
1870, by the planting of two thousand large sized deciduous forest 
trees in the parks at Litchfield and Willmar. 
As Iam now writing what some day may become history, truth 
compels me to say that these first experiments were failures. We 
are none of us proud of our failures. We are too often ashamed of 
our failures. But failures even have their value, and frequently fur- 
