540 



LTOIBER INTERESTS OF THE NORTHWEST. 



nearly so, of timber, but are heavily timbered along the opposite bluffs on the south 

 side. This may be due to warm days in winter or early spring when the sap may have 

 started inthe trees on the north bluffs, followed by severely cold weather before the actual 

 setting in of settled warm weather. The sun's heat would be most felt on the bluffs 

 facing south, and this process repeated many years might injure and destroy the trees.' 

 — (Geolog. Survey of Houston County, Minn., p. 18.) 



Nobles County: 



Much attention has been given to tree-planting, and there is scarcely 

 a claim or a farm on which from one to ten acres have not been started. 

 The season of 1874 was a very poor one for trees, owing to drought. 

 Tens of thousands of white- willow and cotton wood cuttings were planted 

 with soft-maple seed, but probably not one in a thousand came up. The 

 following experience shows the difficulties sometimes encountered in 

 tree-planting in this county: 



I planted about 20 acres of soft maple and 2 of cottonwood, and have nothing to 

 show for it. The grasshoppers cut off the few soft maples which sprouted, and the 

 cuttings dried up in the ground. I made a discovery with box-elder seed which is 

 j)robably worth mentioning. During the winter of 1872-73 we sold from the Colony 

 ofifice, for other parties, quite a quantity of box-elder seed which were planted through- 

 out the county. Very few of the seeds sprouted, and there was a general complaint 

 at the apparent worthlessuess of the seed. Most of those who planted plowed up the 

 ground used and prepared it for other crops. My ground was unmolested until the 

 spring of 1874, when what was my surprise to find the little box -elders pushing through 

 the ground by hundreds, after having laid over one season. There are several groves 

 in this county which have been remarkably successful. One of these was planted by 

 the railroad company for a snow-break, about two miles west of the town. Some 1,500 

 cottonwood and European larches were set in alternate rows in the summer of 1873. 

 Last fall I took a stroll through this grove, and found many of the cottonwoods 10 to 

 15 feet high, and the larches doing well. — {A. P. Miller, T rausactions of Minn. Hort. Soc, 

 winter meeting, Jan., 1875, p. 50.) 



LUMBER INTERESTS OF THE NORTHWEST. 



Under the headings of the several States, we have already given many 

 details of lumber production. The following tables, prepared from data 

 collected by journals of recognized authority, and specially in the inter- 

 ests of lumbermen, will show collectively a comparison of results for the 

 three recent years that deserve careful attention. 



Shingle product of 1874, 1875, and 1876 in the principal Lumber Districts of the Northwestern 



States. 



[From the Northwestern Lumherman; March 17, 1877.] 



• May this not be more probably due to the fact that the bluffs facing the north retain 

 the winter snows,. and have their vegetation thus retarded until warm weather is 

 confirmed f — (H.) 



