404 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
The American white sprucein my estimation makes a handsome 
tree with a richer, thicker foliage than its sister of Norway, but I 
cannot think it quite so hardy. My white spruce are all protected 
and are as vigorous as any trees I have, but I hardly think unpro- 
tected they would stand the fierce storms of wind, snow and ice, our 
Northern inheritance from nature, so well as the Norway spruce. 
The Austrian pine is too uncouth after it gets its growth to have 
a place among the more refined varieties of evergreens, while the 
white pine, less widely known, is the kingof pines. Its soft foliage, 
its more tender green and its beauty of form should make it a more 
general favorite. 
These,I think, are the varieties best adapted to purposes of shelter. 
In regard to planting a belt of trees for a windbreak, I have ob- 
served the following rule with satisfaction. Place the trees eight 
feet apart in the row and the rows from sixteen to twenty feet apart. 
The trees of the second row should be planted so as to break the in- 
termediate spaces of the first row. I consider three rows a good 
windbreak, but even one or two will shelter. Trees from one to three 
feet high will be found the best for setting. It is with trees as with 
children, they should be well looked after when young, carefully 
trained and cultivated, and when old they may be left to care for 
themselves, and they will rise up and call you blessed. 
It Seems to me in such a climate as this, the man who does not 
protect his home from the storms of winter and the heats of sum- 
mer by these guardians of nature, is neither wise nor economical. 
Not only are they a shelter from wind and cold and heat, but from 
disease as well—for leaves, we are told, absorb all noxious qualities 
of the air and breathe forth a purer atmosphere. 
Even a few rows of trees will greatly check the movements of the 
winds. They will protect not only the farmer but the crops in his 
fields and the fruits in his orchards. They will prevent them from 
being blasted or withered by cold or hot winds or from being broken 
down by the force of the same. And while you shelter, make the 
shelter beautiful by planting the tree called Evergreen—the tree 
which does more to turn our winter into summer than any tree that 
grows. 
To some is given the power to rule, to others the power to write, 
but to all is given what Whittier so beautifully describes when he 
says: 
“Give fools their gold and knaves their power, 
Let fortune’s bubbles rise and fall; 
Who sows a field or trains a flower, 
Or plants a treeis more than all. 
For he who blesses most is blest; 
And man shall own his double worth, 
Who toils to leave as his bequest 
An added beauty to the earth.” 
