222 APPENDIX. 



From Professor M. G. Kern, Editor of Coleman's Rural World. 



ST. Louis, January 26, 1892. 

 EDWIN J. HOUSTON, ESQ., Philadelphia, Pa. 



DEAR SIR, Your favor of the twenty-third inst. received. 



Kindly excuse a few remarks on Western forestry, rather 

 outside of the list of available trees requested. But a part of 

 Missouri is heavily timbered, and in these sections the great 

 object of the population is to get rid of the timber for money 

 or for agricultural purposes. Many portions of the State are 

 cleared to the same extent as the older States, with abundance 

 of forest supplies for present use. Part of the State is prairie, 

 in which the need of timber culture is as great as in all open 

 plains. South of us is Arkansas, a mountainous native forest ; 

 west, Kansas, Nebraska, and North Iowa, with her endless 

 prairies. A wide field, indeed, for forest management, reforest- 

 ing, and timber culture. The soil brings forth, mostly with 

 rapid growth, all the indigenous species of our forests ; a list 

 of such could be valuable only in ratio to the value of the 

 timber grown. 



Fast-growing soft woods are considered in wooded sections 

 as of little value, scarcely worth planting on a large scale. 

 They are generally planted for shelter, ornament, or quick 

 shade. No line of difference as to hardiness can in reality be 

 drawn, though variety of conditions make certain kinds more 

 suitable to certain localities: we differ in this respect from 

 more northern latitudes. 



The question of reforesting denuded sections has thus far 

 attracted but little public attention. Intelligent husbandry 

 steadily advancing, is gradually awaking to the necessity of 

 reforestation and the protection of native forests. The pros- 



