STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 397 



Mississipi valleys from Hudson's Bay south to the Gulf of Mexico, 

 would pull together, and with munificent appropriations reclaim by 

 forestry all the now barren regions, constructing dams across the out- 

 lets of the innumerable spring fed ravines to hold back the surplus 

 waters running to waste, and induce the thousands of farmers through- 

 out the mid-continental domains to develop each ten acres of native 

 trees; if our own State, co-operating with Dakota and Manitoba, 

 would embank the deep basins in the far north, converting a wild and 

 desolate expanse into great lakes over which the polar winds blowing, 

 will bring to us vapor blessings instead of frigid curses; if Congress 

 would early execute the late recommendation of the Commissioner of 

 Agriculture at Washington by the construction of vast water reser- 

 voirs among the Rocky Mountains, wherewith to irrigate bountifully 

 all the plains below, and bring to our prairie lands, laden on every 

 breeze from these elevations, supplies of rain, and moist, and dew, and 

 protecting snow; if all this be done with unity of force, within our 

 century we shall have initiated a conquest over our climate, whose 

 benificence cannot be measured. Is not the enterprise feasible? A 

 people that has vanquished the wolf, the savage and the great rebel- 

 lion, can accomplisR anything. 



FORESTRY PROTECTION. 



By Clarence Wedge, Albert Lea. 



I understand that our Society spent much of its time at its last 

 meeting on the subject of forestry. I wish to heartily commend its 

 course. A very practical way of getting hardy varieties of fruit is to 

 reduce the hardiness of our climate; and when we shall have accom- 

 plished this by systematic forestry, fruit will be one of the lesser bles- 

 sings following in its train. 



Protecting, extending and systematizing our forests is one of the 

 police duties the State owes to its people. We need protection from 

 blizzards almost as much as we do from burglars. Great belts should 

 be planted in the prairie districts, belts half a mile wide, extending 

 through each township east and west, north and south, forming a net- 

 work of barriers to our storms. Wasteland, swamps and bluflFs, should 

 be given a leafy covering, and be made to contribute to the public wel- 

 fare by holding the snows of winter and the rains of spring for our 

 summer drouths. 



