WHERE TO PLANT. 23 



of the sod in preparation for wheat-sowing, 

 there should be some turning of the sod for 

 tree-planting. The two should go together. It 

 is important on all accounts. The wheat-fields 

 themselves will be the more productive for the 

 sheltering and salutary influences of the trees. 

 Trees are equalizers of temperature and 

 moisture, and tend greatly to secure uniform 

 returns to the labor of the husbandman. This 

 is now getting to be well understood, and 

 many are planting trees liberally and with the 

 most satisfactory results. Nature has provided 

 quick-growing trees, which, on the rich soil of 

 the prairies, soon spring up into groves that re- 

 lieve the nakedness of the landscape, while they 

 bring abundant comfort to the dwellers there 

 by their grateful shade and shelter, and their 

 supply of fuel and timber. In the older prairie 

 States a very manifest change has already been 

 wrought. It has been found that those States 

 were bare of trees, not because there was any- 

 thing in the soil or climate which forbade their 

 growth, but from other though perhaps un- 

 known causes. Evidences of former tree-growth 

 have been met with. Remains of ancient trees 



