182 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



Cheap kinds of trees which will rapidly grow into good pioneer wind- 

 breaks are, fortunately, best at first, for the most part. Some hardwooded, 

 long-lived trees, however, should be mixed with them. 



The soft maples in my father's old homestead grove in Iowa have been 

 dead for ten years, but the black walnuts and ash, which hastened their 

 death by being deeper rooted in dry years, now stand as monuments to 

 the man who planted them thirty- live years ago. 



White willow, cottonwood, box elder, soft maple, white ash and white 

 elm stand as the old favorites and have done an immense amount of ser- 

 vice as windbreaks all over the prairie regions. A few of the Russian 

 willows and poplars are becoming prominent pioneer trees. Scotch and 

 white pines and some other evergreens may be planted with profit, even 

 far to the northwest, after enough of a grove has been produced to make 

 a snow gatherer and to show where these trees may be planted that the 

 snow will not break them down too badly. Farther south, they may be 

 planted at first. 



Trees in belts should be planted thickly, especially farther west where 

 the forest conditions must be early reached that snow and rain may be 

 held to mitigate the effects of drouth. As close as six or eight feet apart is 

 often desirable. The custom of placing a single or double hedge-row of 

 willows along the west and north sides of these shelter belts seems as 

 wise in the far northwest as in the great corn belt, where this plan is so 

 generally popular. Different species can be placed in separate rows. 

 Cultivation should be complete for a few to several years, and should con- 

 tinue after harvest. Mulching heavily with straw or coarse barn litter, 

 where there is little danger from fire, often helps the trees to get the 

 start of quack grass and other strong-sodded grasses. Barbed wire fences, 

 costing twelve to twenty cents per rod, are a cheap protection from stock. 



THE FRUIT AND VEGETABLE GARDEN. 



Ample protected space should be provided inside the grove for gardens 

 and orchards. Not that they shall all be developed at once, but that there 

 shall be room for orchards, rotation of garden crops with millet and clover 

 and for any ordinary requirements for fruit trees or gardens in the future, 

 and a little extra space to serve for calf pastures, soiling crops or other 

 special crop. A study of the economies, the use of time or labor, the health 

 andenjoymentof the family on farms in pioneer sections convinces one that 

 no farmer can afford to fail to spend the time in winter to read and learn 

 how to grow vegetables and small fruits, the money for seeds and plants 

 or the labor of raising all of these that the family wants. It is means and 

 energies better spent than in raising the small amount more of 50 to 75 

 cent wheat that could be cared for, instead of a small garden. 



The farmer gets a large part of his remuneration out of having the farm 

 as a home, having his food produced cheaply and of good quality, and from 

 the enjoyments of possessing with undisputed right a property which he 

 can build up and develop into a pleasant place to live. The non-resident, 

 arms-length farmer who gets few of these things and only expects sur- 

 plus cash, often fails in competition with the bona fide resident farmer. 

 Farmers as a rule work far harder to get the renumeration which comes 

 from outside in the form of a balance in cash account than they do for 

 the living they take at once from the farm without the help of the 

 middleman or manufacturer. Our wheat farmers do not spend one-third 



