348 ANNUAL REPORT. 



area around Minnehaha Falls for a similar purpose, but thus far it has been but a 

 feeble effort and na practical result has yet been reached. The region possesses 

 no such features ©f sublimity or grandure as Niagara or the Yellowstone, but it has 

 nevertheless a sufficient claim for consideration from various causes to render its 

 preservation a matter of vital interest and importance. 



It possesses in its natural features enoughof the picturesque to make it an exceed- 

 ingly attractive feature of park scenery, and although it cannot aspire to such 

 intrinsic elements of sublimity as Niagara, it has been invested with such poetic 

 associations as must forever hallow its precincts with a charm which all the world 

 will recognize. When in addition to this we consider the fact that its situation is 

 such that it must of necessity become a central point of a very thickly peopled 

 region, while from its-topographical character it can hardly fail, if not improved for 

 public use, to become a disreputable quarter, and a disgrace to both the cities in its 

 neighborhood, the only verdict that can be reached in regard to the question of its 

 reservation, is that it has already been too long delayed. 



In regard to other appropriate area.=i for similar use it is enough to say that a 

 State Horticultural Society could hardly discover a nobler object for energetic action 

 than the seeking out and urging upon the Legislature the preservation of such 

 tracts as may be available whose intrinsic character renders them especially inter- 

 esting. 



In the wide region embracing the sources of the Father of Waters, such areas 

 must exist whose value and interest will only increase with time and population. 



The following paper was then read : 



EVERGREENS AND THEIR USES. 



By A. W. SiAS, Rochester. 



This subject is fraught with such magnitude and vital impoitance to all, but 

 more especially to the pioneer settlers on our northwestern prairies, that it almost 

 staggers a person of human, sympathetic feelings to contemplate it; and every cold 

 blast from the north reminds us again of the stern fact, that it should be the duty 

 and ardent desire of every owner of a quarter section of land on the open prairie, 

 to surround the same with a thorough shelter belt of evergreens at his earliest pos- 

 sible opportunity, and not to forget the shelter of his buildings, stock yards, or- 

 chard site, etc , with a closer screen, at the same time. Now what shall we use for 

 this all important business of 



SHELTER BELTS? 



"Self preservation is the first law of nature." So we will take up this part of 

 our subject first. Did it ever occur to you how few people live up to the kind re- 

 quirements, superior advantages and happy possibilities of the just law of .nature? 

 How wisely, profusely and generously, do we find native evergreen nurseries 

 scattered all over this broad country, where fine plants can be had for almost the 

 cost of digging and packing, and yet how few, comparatively, ever avail themselves 

 of the marvelous wealth stored away in these rich mines. Nature has made ample 

 and abundant provision for all the varied wants of mankind; made it possible 

 through united effort, and the judicim? US3 of trees, to so clothe the earth with 



