56 TREE PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



selection of flora is what will survive in the struggle for existence, irre- 

 spective of value to us. Practically not over twenty-five per cent of all 

 the forest trees indigenous to the state should be specially encouraged for 

 tree culture. The "fittest" means the most needful and profitable. 

 Growing the "good, bad and indifferent" is far from wise economy. "In 

 the forests of the future," says Adolph Lue, secretary of the Ohio Forest 

 Bureau, "no tree of an inferior or no commercial value, unless it is used as 

 'nurse trees,' should be or will be tolerated." 



INDIGENOUS VS. FOREIGN TREES. 



There is a sickly mania prevailing in our towns for the introduction of 

 foreign trees not adaptable to our climate, when some of our native trees, 

 perfectly acclimated and equally if not more beautiful, are scarcely 

 noticed. The state has especially provided at our Experiment Station for 

 tests as to fitness of foreign vegetations, and it would be a saving of 

 expense and a surety of greater success in the tests, if people would give 

 heed to what is recommended at headquarters. Before looking abroad for 

 the rare and novel, common sense suggests that we first develop our own 

 forest resources and plant and save what is reliable and useful and beautiful. 

 All things considered for an evergreen, what from Europe or anywhere else 

 in the world can excel our native white pine, or any of our substantial oaks 

 and lindens or ashes? We have growing wild innumerable quantities of 

 flowers and shrubs, which, if culled out and cultivated in our home 

 arboretums, would emparadise our state. Why not seek and cherish the 

 things of value in all our woods and shady nooks and pay as yet less 

 attention to the foreign, which may fail us? 



PARKS FOR ALL THE PEOPLE. 



Much attention is paid to parks for our cities, and most of our villages 

 follow suit. Nothing contributes more to the health and contentment of 

 the masses than these rural retreats. But why limit park improvement 

 and its educative influences to the populous centers? The monotony of 

 country life that tends to drive the young folks into the surfeiting cities 

 can be largely neutralized by legislative encouragement to the development 

 of public parks in the country places. One of the very best ways to enrich 

 the state is to transform the waste lands in every county and township 

 into free forests for the people's rest and recreation, serving also as public 

 wind-breaks and water reservoirs. 



A few years ago congress set aside a limited tract of wild land at and 

 around Itaska Lake for a state park. This has nothing to do with the 

 proposed forest reserve, and is based on an entirely different plan. Its 

 area ought to be enlarged the better to subserve the object sought. Itaska 

 Park deserves special care and public favor. It is all important to rescue 

 the pines there from being stolen, and all that picturesque region from 

 fires, thus conserving our streams and lakes at the headlands of the Mis- 

 sissippi. 



