246 CAMPBELL'S SOIL CULTURE MANUAL 



positions, exposed to the hot sun and drying winds from 

 the southwest. Trees are almost as gregarious as human 

 beings. No man or woman could have been perfectly de- 

 veloped, physically, and intellectually, in absolute solitude 

 and without communication or intercourse with other hu- 

 man beings. And just so, no single tree planted out on 

 the hot prairie, exposed to the burning sun all day long, 

 can make as perfect a specimen of its kind as can be grown 

 where trees are clustered together. 



Arboriculture is absolutely indispensible to the conser- 

 vation of other plant life, and even to the existence of ani- 

 mal life on these planis. The independence of the lives 

 of trees and the lives of human beings is constant. If a 

 single summer should be passed without foliage, flower or 

 fruit on the globe, all animal existence would cease. 



Your great work in soil culture is thoroughly appre- 

 ciated by every thinking citizen of Nebraska. Your in- 

 telligent efforts to benefit the agriculture and horticulture 

 of this state are of greater value to your race and to those 

 who come after you than all the efforts of all the members 

 of congress who have ever represented this commonwealth 

 at Washington. It is a gratification to realize that soil 

 culture and arboriculture are destined, without asking an 

 appropriation from the general government, to revolu- 

 tionize the climatic and productive conditions of the state 

 of Nebraska. Just as plants need light and as potato 

 sprouts in dark cellars seek the windows and doors where 

 the sun's rays occasionally stream in, so all the people of 

 the prairie states need the illuminating practicalities of 

 your researches and experiments in soil cullture, which 

 illustrate the method of insuring crops by intelligent tillage 

 against destruction by drouths. 



J. STERLING MORTON. 

 ARBOR LODGE, Jan. 18th., 1902. 



