f? : w have figured on timber planting for commercial 

 purposes on our prairies, and yet there is here a possi- 

 bility that we cannot afford to neglect. A thing of 

 beauty is all the more valuable if it has a profit side to 

 it. At the recent meeting of the South Dakota Horti- 

 cultural society, this phase of the question was fully 

 discussed and some facts were brought to light to show 

 something of the dollar and cents side of tree raising. 

 C. V. Gardner, of Piedmont, S. D., in speaking of 

 "Forest Tree Planting in the Black Hills", said that 

 he had a five acre grove that he planted fifteen years 

 ago, composed mostly of ash. Owing to the scarcity of 

 timber, it is estimated, said Mr. Gardner, that hard- 

 wood will be practically a thing of the past for com- 

 mercial purpose fifteen years hence. "I have already 

 been offered $8,000," he declared, "for that five-acre 

 patch of timber, and I have refused it. By the time 

 that grove is twenty-five years old the trees alone will 

 be worth from $3.00 to $5.00 each, standing, and as 

 each acre easily contains 2,000 trees, one may readily 

 calculate what five acres would bring me ten years 

 hence." 



Geo. H. Whiting of Yankton, said, continuing the 

 discussion, that in 1891 he purchased a tract of land on 

 the Missouri river bottom that contained ten aeres of 

 cotton wood trees. "It was a tract that was flooded by 

 the great overflow in the spring of 1891," said he. "I 

 have never devoted a day's time to it except to cut out 

 the dead timber and use the live when occasion de- 

 manded. It has supplied all the firewood that my fam- 

 ily has needed, have sold several hundred posts a year 



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