6 TREE PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



with large black spots; useful for tanning purposes. The acorns of this 

 tree, and nothing is more interesting to inspect, are oval in form, large, 

 sweet, contained in rough, shallow, grayish cups, single or in pairs. 



The wood is reddish. It' is manufactured into wheels, furniture, car 

 frames, plow beams and handles, bridges, steamers and sail vessels, dock 

 yards, and multitudes of other things that require solidity and durability. 



The demand for the wood is so great that ere a quarter of a century has 

 passed, the American oak for commercial purposes will be the same as 

 extinct. How few give the least thought of the oak famine just ahead! 



scarlet oak, Quercus coccinia. 



The scarlet oak is quite common on the Upper Mississippi, interspersed 

 with other oaks. In favorable localities it is known to grow from three 

 to four feet in diameter and eighty feet in height. Gray bark, its interior 

 reddish; wood also reddish, coarse-grained, open pores, poor timber com- 

 pared with white or red oak; makes good staves. Its leaves have long foot- 

 stalks, beautiful green, smooth, shiny on both sides, deep, narrow lobes, 

 which in perspective look like green-bordered bays. After successive 

 frosts in the fall, they turn to a bright red. Acorns large and somewhat 

 elongated; cups coarse-scaly, covering half or more of the rounded acorns. 

 This tree does well in dry soil, and maybe considered as hardy for the 

 prairie. 



the post oak, Quercus obtusiloba. 



The Post Oak, known elsewhere as the Box-white Oak and sometimes 

 Iron Oak, is, as a rule, but thinly disseminated over the country. Either 

 by birds or some other method of transportation, its acorns have lodged in 

 the soil regions of the Upper Mississippi, but is infrequent. 



Its fructification seldom fails. "The acorns are small, oval and covered 

 for a third of their length with a slightly rugged grayish cup. They are 

 very sweet, and form a delicious food for squirrels and wild turkeys (farther 

 south), hence the tree is sometimes called the Turkey Tree." It rarely 

 exceeds fifteen inches in diameter and forty to fifty feet in height. It has 

 elbow-like branches, disproportionately large summit and thick, grayish 

 white bark. Ite leaves are thick, grayish, downy beneath, pale and rough 

 above. The wood is yellowish. For staves and posts it takes the lead of 

 all the oaks. Its timber is sometimes confounded with the white oak, 

 which it resembles. Probably has never been well tested on the prairies 

 of Minnesota. Being so tough every way, with judicious treatment it 

 would, no doubt, prove invaluable. 



yellow chestnut oak, Quercus prinus acuminata. 



This tree is rare in cemparison with many others. It has been found 

 in the southeastern part of Minnesota. Its special retreat is in valleys 

 where the soil is loose, deep and fertile; and there it may attain a height 

 of seventy er eighty feet, and two feet in diameter; the branches trying to 

 hug the trunk as if to protect it from the cold, a habit that perhaps 

 would commend it for the prairie where it can be rightly protected by other 



