MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 53 
7,496 were found to have weathered the elements, and were accept- 
ed by the Company and paid for. It is proper to state, that in an- 
ticipation of some fatality, Mr. Hoffman planted some 300 or 400 
more than his contract called for. Cause of loss, depredations of 
cattle and snow drifts. Soil and climate not to blame. 
Of the second contract but 41,500 were planted; about one-half 
on the cuts between Kandiyohi and Willmar, and the balance on the 
Pomme de Terre cuts just east of Morris. This planting was badly 
done—was done on ground broken out of season, and badly broken 
—was done too late, and every condition supposed to be necessury 
to ensure a failure, having been fully complied with, the final esti- 
mate, made two years after planting, showed about 18,500 live trees 
which were accepted and paid for by the Company. The greatest 
mortality in this lot occurred among those planted on the Pomme de 
Terre cuts, and was confined principally to the Lombardy poplars. 
‘The cottonwoods in this lot have done much better than could have 
been expected. Most of them were seedlings when planted. The 
ensuing winter the tops froze off clear to the ground, and on June 
1st, 1873, they were about the size of young cabbage plants. At 
this writing most of them stand from six to twelve feet high, and 
very thrifty and well proportioned. 
During the summer and fall of 1872 about sixty acres in small 
strips twenty-five feet wide, along about fifty of the worst cuts, was 
broken under the supervision of C. W. Moore, Esq., Superintendent 
of the Western Division. These strips were broken within right of 
way limits, the outer edge of the strips coming up to or on the right 
of way lines, and the inner edge of the breaking to within fifty feet 
of the centre of track. This breaking was designed for the planting 
of forest trees, which when grown to a sufficient height and dense- 
ness, would serve to protect the road from snow drifts. 
Many of these strips were planted in the fall of 1872 with acorns. 
The ground not having been properly prepared for planting ; many 
of the acorns worthless, and the gophers being on short rations the 
following spring concluded to ‘‘go for” those which were good, 
which they did in ‘‘a way I despise.” The result was a failure. 
We now approach what may be styled the 
SECOND EPOCH 
in this history ; the abandonment of the contract system and the or- 
ganization of a Tree Planting Department. 
The bitter experience of all railroad men in the Northwest in 
shoveling and ‘‘ bucking” snow-drifts, running snow blockades, dur- 
ing the winters of 1871 and 1872, and 1872 and 1873; the immense 
ash outlays for removing snow and ice, added to the loss from dam- 
age to machinery, reaching in the aggregate many hundred thousands 
of dollars; the loss of time, the absolute impossibility of operating 
many of our roads during such winters, the consequent derangement 
of all business and commercial transactions, called loudly for a per- 
manent and practical remedy, and when the great electrical storm of 
January 7th, 8th and 9th, 1873, swept over the entire Northwest, 
burying the roads in impassable drifts, arresting travel, stopping the 
