STATE HOETICULTURAL SOCIETY. 157 



Now I suppose in order to make this matter of planting forests ef- 

 fective, the national government should take hold of it, but the gov- 

 ernment never veill do it unless the effort is first started by societies 

 or individuauls. After the experience of the last week or ten days in 

 which scores and hundreds of people who have lost their lives by the 

 storms which have prevailed on these treeless prairies in Dakota and 

 to the west of us, it won't be necessary to cite any evidence that there 

 is abundant necessity for something to be done to protect life and 

 even existence itself in that region of country; and while we have a 

 common interest in the welfare of our kind we should feel special in- 

 terest for the protection of the people of our own State. It is well 

 known that many of these people are too poor to get away, and will 

 be obliged to remain. A wall of timber should be erected across 

 those plains to stop the sweep of the furious blasts that come down 

 from the north; and from this side of the rocky mountains, and 

 which seem to gather force as they come across the plains and reach 

 the borders of Minnesota, and strike our timber areas and are arrested 

 in their progress. It is here their force and severity is broken up; it 

 is our forests that afford the protection we enjoy. This Society 

 should exert every influence it can bring to bear for the preservation 

 of forests, and if there is anything that can be done to help cover the 

 treeless prairies with shelter belts it ought to be speedily brought 

 about. 



It is said there are localities in Dakota where trees won't grow, and 

 in some places trees will not live to be more than three years old. 

 That may be the fact, but I very much doubt it. I would like to see 

 this Society put itself on record in some way in favor of the national 

 government taking some proper action. One suggestion I would 

 make would be to have a competent man in charge of a bureau of 

 forestry, and placing sufficient funds under his control to enable him 

 to do something in this direction. 



. Mr. Sias. I think a man must be a fool to undertake to live where 

 a tree cannot be made to live. [Laughter.] If there is anything 

 needed to force him to see the necessity or the good sense of doing 

 what Mr. Pearce says, to plant evergreens out there upon the western 

 prairies by the million, why I would just ask those persons to please 

 read over the list and see how many have been frozen to death out 

 there in that country within a few days past. 



President Elliot. We have with us to-day Mr. Oliver Gibbs, a for- 

 mer secretary of the Society, who has recently gone to Dakota. I do 

 not know whether he is a delegate from the Dakota Horticultural 



