450 



Canadian Forestry Journal, November, 1919 



so would the people. Weeds would not tumble 

 so far, and farming conditions would be im- 

 proved and stabilized, a condition very much 

 to be desired at the present time. 



There are, of course, details we cannot touch 

 on here that would have to be worked out, but 

 this is a brief statement of a side of prairie 

 settlement that has had little or no attention 

 paid to it hitherto. 



At first sight it looks a long job to plant ten 

 per cent of the prairie, but does any one doubt 

 if it would be a benefit after it was done? It 

 will take time to do, but it will have to be done 

 some time. The mind recoils from contemplat- 

 ing the prairie, bare, windswept, treeless, soil- 

 drifted, dry and comfortless for ever. 



A beginning towards the real sheltering of 

 our fields must be made sometime, and soon, 

 before the best of our fertility is blown away. 



Is there any reason why that beginning should 

 not be made now? 



Irrigation, and the planting possible through 

 irrigation will help some, but we all know that 



by far the greater portion of the real dry )egion 

 can never be irrigated, and it does not take 

 much foresight to see that a repetition in a 

 century of the series of dry seasons we have 

 experienced since settlement began in western 

 Saskatchewan and southern Alberta would go 

 far towards converting our good dry prairie into 

 little better than a desert. 



It is a big question; it is a pressing question, 

 and it is high time something was done. Our 

 planting efforts on the prairie have hitherto 

 been directed only towards sheltering the gar- 

 dens and buildings. It is time they were di- 

 rected towards where they really belong the 

 sheltering of the farm and the preservation of 

 the soil. 



The area under review is so large, its soil so 

 rich, and its value as a wealth producer so great 

 that these days of post bellum retrenchment and 

 development, we cannot afford to neglect it. 



Forestry is Canada's national problem, and 

 not the least important branch of that national 

 problem is that of forestry on the prairie farms. 



TWIN ELM TREES. 



The enclosed picture of two curiously joined 

 American Elm trees (Ulmus Americana), was 

 taken at Conestogo, Waterloo County, Ontario, 

 m 1918. 



These Siamese twin trees are located on a 

 flood plain of the Grand river, opposite the 

 village of Conestogo. The larger of the trees 

 measures about 42 inches in diameter at its 

 base, the smaller about 38 inches. There is 

 nothing on either tree that would indicate how 

 these trees became joined, and there are no 

 local traditions concerning th^m. From the 

 angle of the joining limb as it leavos the larger 

 tree, it is reasonable to suppose that it belonged 

 first to that tree. 



I have known the twin Irees for over iorty 

 years, and while I have seen many curious na- 

 tural grafts and other twins, none have been so 

 widely separated or so evidently not from the 

 same root. 



The flood plain on which the trees are located 

 is subject to heavy overflow each spring and all 

 of the trees near the river's edge are heavily 

 scarred by ice. 



The twins stand about five feet apart and the 



joining limb is about 8 feet above the ground 



level. 



Orpheus Mover Schantz. 



Chicago, November, 1919. 



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