STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 241 



I advise planting all forest trees on the prairie about four feet apart 

 each way. This to many may seem too close, but my experience 

 justifies the statement. Close planting will make long bodied trees. 

 Grow this way from seven to ten years; at the expiration of this 

 time the planter can commence to cut out fence posts, poles, &c. 

 The cost of growing ten acres of forest trees on the prairie, by a 

 farmer residing on his land, will vary from ten to fifteen dollars 

 per acre, for a period of five years. After that date there is no ex- 

 pense except keeping out fires. And the value of 2000 to 2500 

 trees per acre, ten years of age, in a prairie country, depending on 

 the varieties and species grown, will be from twenty-five to seventy- 

 five dollars per acre, and an additional value of comfort and ap- 

 pearance that cannot be computed. 



Sioux City, Iowa, Jan 7th, 1884. 



TREES FOR THE HIGHWAY 



Letter prom Dr. Hough. 



LowviLLE, N. Y., January 5th, 1884. 

 Oliver Gibbs, Jr., 



Dear Sir : — 



There is one thing that I will venture to urge upon the atten- 

 tion of the meeting, and through the combined influence of the 

 Horticultural and Forestry Associations, there would be reason to 

 hope that proper legislation might be secured. Although a year 

 must elapse before another session, there is all the more time 

 allowed ior ample preparation. 



I refer to a law requiring the local authorities having charge of 

 the public highways, to cause plantations to be made along their 

 borders. It might not at first be expedient to enforce such a law, 

 excepting in the prairie regions of the state, but there it should not 

 be left optional, unless a dissent were expressed by a large majority 

 in the local elections. Upon the continent in Europe, and especi- 

 ally in Germany and France, where the roads are as a general rule 

 without fences, they are seldom without their avenues of trees. The 

 sameness in kind, and uniformity in spacing, indicates that they 

 16 



