520 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
cess with his timber that, although his residence is not in this depart- 
ment, still the following replies to my questions are inserted as showing 
what can be done in this Western country: 
Question. How far and in what direction is Whiting from Sioux City? 
Answer. I am 26 miles south by 12 east from Sioux City, in the center of the Mis- 
souri bottom, here some twenty miles wide on the Iowa side. 
Qnestion. Are the climate, soil, and general features of the country about the same 
as in the neighborhood of Yankton or Southern Dakota? Please give the general char- 
acteristics of the climate as to rainfall (the months in which the fall is greatest), the - 
amount of winds, length of winter, &c. 
Answer. Our climate, soil, and productions differ much more from those of Yankton 
than the distance would indicate. Ouraverage rainfall is from 35 to 40 inches, butmuch 
more during the last three years. Our winds are strong, but no worse than in any 
open country. Frost usually kills vegetation from the first to the middle of October, 
but we usually have no real winter till December. Our cattle go to grass from the 
20th of April to the 10th of May. 
Question. What varieties of trees have you planted, the number of years they have 
been growing, and their average size ; the number of trees ? 
Answer. I have planted the cottonwood, hard and soft maple, black and white wal- 
nut, white willow, ash, locust, mulberry, elm, larch, and many kinds of evergreens and 
other trees. They are of all ages from one to sixteen years, and of all sizes up to two 
feet in diameter and seventy feet in height. Ihave some forty-five acres planted, all 
in belts around my fields, from one to twenty rows wide, numbering 25,000 cotton- 
woods, 20,000 white or soft maples, 75,000 black walnuts, and a large number of other 
trees. 
Question. Have you made use of seed and shoots, or have you resorted to trans- 
planting ? 
Answer. I raise all my cottonwood from young plants from the Missouri bars, where 
they are found by the million. They grow well from cuttings, but it is more work. 
Walnuts, maples, box-elders, elms, and ash I raise from seed, and white willows from 
cuttings. Evergreens I transplant from the nurseries. 
Question. Please state what success you have had with each of these processes, and 
which you prefer, with reasons therefor. 
Answer. With all our native trees, including the white willow, my success has been 
complete. I take the cottonwoods from the bars because it is the least work, and 
when set with ordinary care they all live. For the same reason I use cuttings of the 
white willow. Of the other trees named I plant the seed, because it saves me more than 
four-fifths of the work, and with many varieties at least two years’ growth, notably 
so with the black walnut. 
Question. What is your method of cultivating the trees? Do you ditch around the 
young trees, and do you pay especial attention to irrigation? In transplanting do 
you cut off the branches close to the trunk, or do you cut off the trunk below the 
branches ? 
Answer. I cultivate all my trees for the first two years, and if not too large a little 
in the spring of the third year, just as I would a crop of corn that I wished to make 
yield eighty bushels to the acre, using my double cultivators the first two years unless 
the trees become too large. I have my ground in good condition and pay no attention 
to irrigation, and about as little to the branches. 
Question. About what percentage of the trees mature ? 
Answer. In all my later plantings I have put my rows 6 feet apart and 2 feet in the 
rows, making four thousand three hundred and fifty-six trees to the acre, and they so 
nearly all grow that the percentage of loss is not worth naming. 
Question. Do you think that better results in planting trees are obtained in a settled 
section than in a wild one, other things being equal? 
Answer. I have planted most of my timber after the prairie was broken and one crop 
raised on the land. ‘The richness of land being the same I should expect equal results 
in both cases. 
Question. Since you have lived in Jowa has there been any decided increase in the 
amount of rainfall; and, if so, do you think that the planting of trees has had any 
effect in that way ? 
Answer. The rainfall with us has been greater for a few years past, but I am not 
prepared to say that it is owing to the amount of timber that we have planted. In 
many sections we have enough planted to make a very marked difference in the effect 
of the winds, and from two to five degrees of cold as marked by the thermometer. 
It will be seen from the above that Judge Whiting pays no attention 
to irrigation. That is doubtless because, being in the bottom land and 
the rainfall so great, there is a sufficiency of moisture. But it would 
