146 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Member: "What is green ash and what is black ash? 



E. H. S. Dartt: There seems to be a little confusion in re- 

 gard to these varieties of green ash and white ash. I think, 

 if I recollect right, the white ash has a rough root, whilst the 

 green ash has a smooth root. I just want to say that I had five 

 hundred ash trees set in the nursery a few years ago, and one 

 of those very severe winters followed and they most all killed 

 down; I do not know whether it was the green ash or the white 

 ash, so it seems that the ash under some circumstances is not 

 quite as hardy as it ought to be. 



Pres. Elliot: That is not the Duchess, you know. 



C. L. Smith: I was very much interested in the paper of 

 Prof. Fernow, because it is exactly along the line that I have 

 been at work on for a long time, and if you will look at the 

 back numbers of our horticultural reports and our agricultural 

 papers you will find that I have had a good many disputes in 

 regard to this matter, and that I have always contended for 

 the close planting of trees. I have urged it in season and out 

 of season for years. During the year 1889 I distributed over 

 the state over twenty thousand pamphlets, urging the necess- 

 ity of action along the line of this paper. Now in the matter 

 of forest fires; to be sure we have a law on our statute books 

 covering that subject, and the very same legislature that en- 

 acted that law provided for the appointment of a state officer 

 who should look after the enforcement of that law, and he has 

 been from that day to this a clerk in the state auditor's office 

 and he has never prosecuted or attempted to prosecute a man 

 for burning up our state timber. Our people are universally 

 blind in regard to the importance of this question, and it does 

 not receive the attention it ought to receive, either in town or 

 in the country. It has been brought before the legislature, 

 but they pay very little attention to it, and there is no oppor- 

 tunity to discuss the importance of this question. 



In regard to the kind of trees to be planted; for twenty years 

 I have insisted that the willow was and should be the pioneer 

 tree for tree planters. Now Mr. Barrett contends for two or 

 more kinds; Prof. Fernow suggests that one or two rows of 

 trees do not fill the requirements of forest planting; that there 

 should be numerous rows of different kinds of trees mixed to- 

 gether. So far as the varieties of trees are concerned, I fully 

 agree with Mr. Barrett that the willow and the ash give the 

 best timber for the money of anything that ever was planted 



