22 HAND-BOOK OF TREE-PLANTING. 



trees. People ought not to be invited to live, 

 they ought not to try to live, in such a region as 

 Northern Dakota or Minnesota, unless they have 

 the hope of a speedy change of their condition, 

 to be supplied by the presence of trees. A high 

 civilization would be impossible there without 

 the aid of trees. Barbarism would not only be 

 "the first danger" but the inevitable result. 

 Wheat-fields are not enough, even if droughts 

 and floods could be insured against. " Man 

 shall not live by bread alone." Years ago, a 

 professor in one of the colleges of that region 

 said publicly that it was simple cruelty to invite 

 people to settle there until measures were taken 

 to plant trees so as to make an effectual safe- 

 guard against the terrible blizzards which sweep 

 down from the icy North with such blinding 

 and destructive power. Tree-planting is almost 

 a first necessity of life there. The man who set- 

 tles there should understand that he is to be en- 

 gaged in a battle with the icy bayonetry of the 

 North, and he needs at once to raise his breast- 

 work of trees and fight behind their cover. An 

 outlay for these is as needful as an outlay for 

 agricultural implements. With the first turning 



