58 ARBOR DAY. 



plant trees, I will never get any good of them." No 

 doubt such men have been eating the fruits of other men's 

 labors all their lives. As a lawn or shade tree, I think 

 the cork or white elm the very best. For profit in this 

 state, I would plant black walnut and white pine. Thirty- 

 one years ago this spring I set out 1,000 white pine in 

 Muscatine Co., near Cone. To-day they are sixty feet high 

 and twenty-eight inches in diameter. I lost very few by 

 planting, though taken from the forest, and not one has 

 died since in all these years. They are there yet, strong, 

 vigorous, valuable, beautiful; a monument of which I 

 am proud. Twenty-six years ago I planted 1,000 black 

 walnuts; many of them are now fully sixteen inches in 

 diameter, and forty acres of them would be a fortune. 

 How to observe Arbor Day ? Our state requires a certain 

 number of trees on each school-house lot. Where it has 

 not been done, it would be well to do it this Arbor Day, 

 in the presence of the pupils, the teacher or director 

 showing the best way to plant, and what to plant* In the 

 spring of 1872 I invited my neighbors to help me set 

 out trees on our school-house lot. I furnished 100 white 

 pine. We planted them all the same day, and every tree 

 lived. To-day there is not such another school lot in the 

 county. They were three feet high when I planted ; they 

 are now fully thirty feet, making a perfect protection 

 from blizzards in winter, and they are pleasant and 



