238 ANlSrUAL REPORT. 



many of them. I have been making a practice of cutting down and 

 digging a hole ten to twelve feet broad, and three to four feet deep in 

 which to plant my trees. Then it has something to feed on. The 

 roots will extend under the street, and it can run up into the lawn and 

 get feed there. I think if we looked at this idea of planting trees in a 

 common sense way, we wouldn't have so many failures. Five or ten 

 feet across and four feet deep is the way I want it fixed on the street. 



I don't know of anything that has interested me more than this 

 paper. I would say it is about as correct as anything I have seen for 

 the treatment of street and lawn planting. We have given this sub- 

 ject too little attention. Heretofore we have devoted the large propor- 

 tion of our time to the apple and other fruits, and I am glad to see 

 that we are coming back to our senses and trying to ornament and 

 adorn our homes and make them pleasant and beautiful. 



Mr. Smith. I am sorry the paper is not better, but having read in 

 one of the reports what Mr. Pearce said in regard to the hard maple to 

 the effect that for all the shade trees for planting in Minnesota there 

 was nothing equal to the hard maple, I had rather expected a little 

 more endorsement from him. 



Mr. Pearce. Well, gentlemen, there are a good many strange things 

 in this world after all. That was in regard to planting hard maples 

 for a sugar plantation; but 1 will say to-day that if you want shade 

 trees on the prairie and want something very nice, you will get ten 

 thousand of those little hard maples, at about two dollars a hundred, 

 in place of putting in the cottonwood, plant them on ten acres of 

 ground and afterwards you will thank me for it. 



Mr. Elliot. I don't think you can plant any tree with a large leaf 

 on the prairie, and expect it to live. Even the boxelder won't live, 

 nor the ash, and all those kinds of trees outside the willow and cotton - 

 wood, you may just as well give up trying to grow, first as last. 



Mr. Pearce. Those little hard maples, a foot high, planted thick, 

 «ay a foot apart, will grow. I set them seven years ago at Moorhead, 

 and I could go there now and show you the handsomest grove there is 

 in that whole country. 



Mr. Barrett. In the locality in which I live we make a success 

 with the boxelder; we can abuse that tree more than any other and 

 have it survive. The Minnesota Pine is a failure. I have tried it 

 three years. The lombardy poplar is very unpopular with us, also the 

 white poplar, and the silver leaf. On the level ground it seems to 

 l)light, and the tree dies. There are certain influences at work there 



