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MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



TREES WILL HELP OUR CROPS. 



BY PROF. W. M. nAYS, ST. ANTHONY PARK, MINN. 



While the culture of trees and plants is ennobling, and the products of 

 the forest, the orchard and the garden are of very great value, the horti- 

 cultural matter most needing agitation now is that of forests, to modify 

 the extremes of our climate. We look upon the extreme cold of winter, 

 the periodic summer extreme of drouth, and the dryness of the summer 

 air, as our worst climatic disadvantages. We know that cutting off 

 forests in numerous older countries has changed the humidity of the air, 

 increased the extent of summer drouth, and even made more severe the 

 storms of winter. But few look at the situation in this great valley of the 

 Mississippi calmly and contemplate the wide area which is affected. A 

 lessening of a few per cent, of the days of summer drouth alone would be 

 worth many millions to the country. Only the men who study forestry 

 as a science, realize that the raising of our needed supplies of lumber and 

 other wood in a systematic manner could have beneficial effect on the cli- 

 mate of so vast a region. When the nation does realize the fact, as a 

 shortage of lumber must soon compel it to do, our people will act, and it 

 is our duty to keep on agitating the question and bring action as soon 

 as possible. 



I have here a drawing illustrating a few things regarding the moisture 

 of the center of this continent and how we might better utilize it by 

 keeping it in our soils and in the air for all crops, and for making the cli- 

 mate more comfortable as well. In the central part of the Mississippi 

 valley running north and south is a wide level basin in the very center of 

 the continent, which is little more than a thousand feet above sea level at 

 any point. From this low part a branch of low land swings off across the 



