510 FOREST CULTURE IN ILLINOIS. 



■which white elm, ash, and silver maple are generally used. It is to be regretted that 

 Rome continue to plant the Jjf^mbardy poplar, which is very short lived, and timber 

 of so little value. Centennial trees were very generally Let by our people who plant 

 at all. 



Several cemeteries, a number of farms in this vicinity, and the Blackstone Public 

 School grounds in Mendota, have been improved the present year by planting exten- 

 sive evergreen screens. 



How any one can reside on our bleak prairies during the passage of one of our polar 

 waves, like that of December 9, with the mercury at —2'.i° and not decide to provide 

 timber shelter for his family and animals, is past my comprehension. Yet how many 

 men, with good sense in every other respects and with ample means, continue to live 

 without tJihj merciful provision ! It really does seem certain that, at no distant day, a 

 general awakening to this work of necessity, must break out all over the prairies of 

 the Northwest. 



Of ornamental deciduous trees, as yet planted only to a limited extent, I would place 

 first on the list our lovely sugar maple. If there is a finer avenue of deciduous trees 

 in our State than the one of sugar maple planted by Arthur Bryant, some forty years 

 since, it has not been my good Ibrtnne to see it. Norway maple is one of the best, val- 

 uable on account of retaining its foliage late; cut-leaved weeping birch, very fine; 

 Aveeping mountain ash; horse chestnut, slow grower, desirable; Japan ginko, unique; 

 American linden, if foreign, would be called for; magnolia acuminata, unsurpassed. 

 The following do not endure severe winters: European ash and several weeping 

 varieties of it; European weeping linden; weeping thorn, several varieties; rose- 

 mary-leafed weeping willow. Kilmarnock weeping willow, though hardier than the 

 foregoing, is frequently injured enough to render it undesirable. 



Dr. J. T. Stewart, of Peoria, 111., in reportioji' on arboriculture at the 

 same session of the Illinois Horticultural Society, after noticing that 

 whatever tends to cultivate and refine the taste of a people elevates 

 them, and that this taste has too generally been neglected in matters of 

 ornamental cultivation, although beginning to appear in a higher order 

 of architecture in dwellings, proceeds to specify some of the trees and 

 shrubs susceptible of fine cultivation in Middle Illinois. He states as 

 a general rule that the indigenous trees of the State are more reliable 

 than foreign ones, and that their preference of soil and conditions can 

 generally be known beforehand by observing them in their native 

 growth. Among the native trees of Middle Illinois he names the sugar 

 and silver-leaf maples, box-elder, hackberry, linn, ash (five species) 

 coffee-nut, wild black cherry, persimmon, pecan, honey-locust, syca 

 more, black walnut, red cedar, and, in Southern Illinois, the tulip tree 

 as of known and tried value. Of those not indigenous he recommends 

 the European elm and linn, the Norway maple, birch, hemlock, larch 

 Norway and Scotch pine, mountain ash, catalpa, white willow, horse 

 chestnut, and Norway spruce. 



Of the indigenous shrubs of Middle Illinois that are worthy of culti- 

 vation for ornament, he calls attention to the shad-bush, red-bud, 

 wahoo, sumac, aromatic sumac, black and red haw, bladder-nut, red 

 osier, dogwood, alternate-leafed cornus, and, in Southern Illinois, the 

 flowering dogwood and Indian currant {Symphoricarpus vulgaris); of 

 native vines, the Virginia creeper, trumpet creeper, wild grape, moon- 

 seed, virgin's bower, wild false-bittersweet {Celastrus scandens), and wild 

 yam {Dioscorea villosa). 



