148 ANNUAL KEPORT 



President Elliot. Here is a short article from a gentleman that 

 is very highly respected in the State of Minnesota, by those who 

 know of him and of the work he has been doing here for the past 

 two or three years, as landscape gardener for the Park system in 

 St. Paul and Minneapolis. I sent him a card asking if he would 

 give us a report, and this is the answer that he gives: 



LETTER FROM PROF. CLEVELAND. 



Wyman Elliott, Esq., President Minnnesota Horticultural So- 

 ciety : 



Dear Sir: — Your card was duly received, inviting me to make 

 a "short comprehensive report on deciduous trees" — to be render- 

 ed at the meeting of the Soc, (21st and 24th inst. ) 



Fully appreciating the . honor you do me in thus inviting me, I 

 regret my inability to comply, — first because I am so fully oc- 

 cupied with professional labor that I have no time for other oc- 

 cupations — and secondly because I feel myself entirely incom- 

 petent to do justice to the subject. I have been a resident of the 

 State but five years, during which my work has been almost ex- 

 clusively confined to the designing of Parks, and having had no 

 previous experience here I have had to be guided by what I could 

 leain from older residents, and in planting the Parks have con- 

 fined myself almost exclusively to well known native varieties. 



My object has been to secure abundance of foliage in the least 

 possible time, and I could not afford to experiment with trees 

 that were doubtful. I have, of course, been as active as possible 

 in gathering what information I could from others, but should 

 consider it derogatory to the respect due your Society to offer such 

 second hand knowledge, for the truth of which I could not vouch. 



The only doubtful tree that I have experimented with is the 

 Catalpa speciosa and my experience with that affords matter that 

 may possess interest. 



In the Spring of 1886 we planted on the different Parks of 

 Minneapolis one hundred or more of these trees. They showed 

 not the slightest sign of injury from the intense cold of the two 

 succeeding Winters when the mercury fell to 30 and 40 below zero, 

 but last Spring after the mildest Winter perhaps on record in 

 Minnesota, great numbers of them showed more or less dead 

 branches, and some were killed to the ground, though all came up 

 again from the root. 



I should be glad to hear the experience of other planters, and to 

 learn how they account for the above. 



One other plant I have experimented with, and am hopeful it 

 may succeed — the Japanese Ivy {ampelopsis veitchii). It is en- 

 tirely successful in Boston and Chicago, if protected for the first 

 two or three winters, after which it is as hardy as any native tree. 



