458 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



October 



to only about one per cent, of the re- 

 serves enumerated above. 



In no other way can those mountain 

 forests be preserved for the good of 

 the people for all time. The west has 

 forest reserves for the production of a 

 steady timber supply, and to preserve 

 a steady flow of water for the valleys. 

 It has in addition a great number of 

 large national parks, set aside purely 

 and simply to preserve natural fea- 

 tures of great beauty. New England 

 glories in all these as splendid national 

 possessions, and believes in them, and 

 in the policy which led to their crea- 

 tion. She asks her sister states of the 

 west and south to aid her in establish- 

 ing in the northeast a comparatively 

 small domain which shall serve as a 

 national park and a forest reserve in 

 one. 



Is not a little piece of country like 

 this worthy of our fondest care when 

 it can show 74 mountains of over 



3,000 feet elevation, n of them being 

 over 5,000 feet, and one, Mt. Wash- 

 ington, 6,290 feet, the second highest 

 peak east of the Mississippi River? 



Especially worthy of attention, it 

 seems, when it is considered that 956 

 brooks, large enough to be shown on 

 a two-mile to the inch map, rise in the 

 mountains. Of these 143 feed the 

 Androscoggin River, which turns 

 mills in New Hampshire and Maine. 

 One hundred and forty-eight flow 

 eventually into the Connecticut, prob- 

 ably the principal river of New Eng- 

 land, and in which New Hampshire, 

 Vermont, Massachusetts, and Con- 

 necticut, are all vitally interested. The 

 Merrimac receives the water from 210 

 of these brooks, and this is one of the 

 great cotton mill streams of New 

 Hampshire and Massachusetts; and 

 455 serve the Saco, another stream of 

 commercial importance to both New 

 Hampshire and Maine. 



TREE PLANTING ON MINNESOTA 



PRAIRIES 



BY 



GEORGE L. CLOTHIER 



United States Forest Service 



HT HE desirability of forest planta- 

 tions on the prairie farms of 

 Minnesota is generally conceded. Dif- 

 ferences of opinion that exist concern- 

 ing the advisability of the establish- 

 ment of such plantations are usually 

 caused by a lack of information as to 

 the most desirable species, the proper 

 location of the plantations, the best 

 methods of establishing the same, and 

 the profits likely to accrue from plant- 

 ing. The following pages will be con- 

 fined chiefly to the discussion of some 

 of these questions. 



SELECTION OF SPECIES. 

 Among nurserymen and farmer tree 

 planters generally, dogmatic assertions 

 concerning the merits of different spe- 



cies are likely to be made. Judgment 

 is too often based on results gotten 

 from temporary trials. A new species 

 or variety comes before the public and 

 everybody plants it without question- 

 ing its desirability. The fact that it 

 sells well is the quality most highly 

 esteemed by the average tree dealer. 

 The question as to what the future 

 tree will develop into seems seldom to 

 concern many of our people. An il- 

 lustration of this point is the use of 

 the diamond willow. A few years ago 

 some enterprising dealer took it into 

 his head to advertise the diamond wil- 

 low as a good fence-post tree. Every- 

 body began to clamor for diamond 

 willow, and dealers tried to supply 



