560 FOREST CULTURE IN IOWA. 



belongs. The subject sLould be investigated." Judge C. E. Wbiting has grown this 

 tree extensively for a number of years on the Missouri bottom in Monona County, and 

 has expressed bis views as follows : 



" We have in the Missouri bottom both the white and the yellow cottonwood. In 

 speaking of the cottonwood as a valuable timber, I speak alone of the yellow. I have 

 fence-boards of this yellow cottonwood upon my farm that have been in use fifteen 

 years, and they are yet good. My house is sided with cottonwood ; has been built ten 

 years, and looks as well as any pine siding in the country, and stays to its place as 

 well. It is really better as fenciog than pine, being tougher and stronger. It stays 

 to its place as well, and is equally durable. I need hai-dly say it has no rival in rapid- 

 ity of growth, as it far outstrips the willow. Along the bars of the Missouri are mill- 

 ions of seedlings. They grow up upon these bottoms over a great extent like prairie- 

 grass. There are enough of them to iilant groves over every prairie in the State. I 

 went ten miles from home, and in one day took up 13,000 eighteen to thirty inches in 

 height for my own setting. With ground ready a good hand can set 2,000 to 3,000 per 

 day. The fall is the best time to get seedlings from the Missouri bottom, on account 

 of the high water in the spring. I set cottonwood posts from old trees on the bottom 

 in the spring of 1860. I moved this fence last fall, and nine-tenths of them are yet 

 good. The yellow cottonwood, split up green and put under a dry shed to dry, is good 

 enough for my folks to use for fuel. 



" Of my first planting of cottonwood twelve years ago, the best of them now meas- 

 ure sixteen inches in diameter. We would make plantations very thick. I now plant 

 4,356 trees to the acre. This shoves them up straight and symmetrical. In this way 

 we g't the dead-sure thing on the side-branch business. Cottonwood can be readily 

 grown from seeds. Being upon the river-bottom in June, I noticed the cottonwood 

 trees wer« loaded with seed ; had one cut down and loaded the wagon with branches 

 with the seed attached. I furrowed some ground quite deeply with plow ; strewed 

 the limbs in the rows, and my success in growing many thousands of seedlings was 

 most perfect." 



In the interior sections, where seedlings cannot readily be obtained from the river bot- 

 toms, the yellow cottonwood may be grown from cuttings about as readily as the wil- 

 low. The evident advantage would also ensue of propagating the right variety. On 

 the Missouri bottom the seedlings of the common cottonwood are, of course, intermixed 

 with the more valuable variety. 



Catalpa \^Cafalpa bignovoides'\. — Experience has demonstrated this tree to have a 

 special value for extended planting. Although naturally a tree indigenous farther 

 south, it seems to have a peculiar tendency to adapt itself to northern limits. A va- 

 riety now grown quite extensively in Central Iowa seems as hardy as any of our 

 native trees. The writer has trees now five years set, large enough for small posts for 

 wire fences, which have had open exposure north of 42d parallel during the jjast severe 

 winters. In Cedar County are to be seen many trees, which have been out from ten to 

 fifteen years, which show its habit of rapid growth to continue after it attains consider- 

 able size. In its native forests it attains considerable size, growing from 50 to 80 feet 

 in height, with a diameter of from 18 to 25 inches. Its liowers are very showy, and its 

 odd cylindrical pods attract much attention. It is very durable for posts. Posts are 

 yet sound in Illinois which have been set, it is claimed, forty years. The plants are 

 very easy to grow from seeds, which may bo kept dry until time for sowing. But in 

 all cases secure seed grown on northern trees. In Cedar County, and near Muscatine, 

 the seeds are quite abundant. The trees flower and bear seeds abundantly when quite 

 youug. 



White and Scotch Pines [_Pinus strohns and P. sijhesfrisl. — These have been referred 

 to in this report as very desirable for shelter belts. Our people have been slow to 

 plant them for timber trees as their most evident use as such is for sawed lumber. Ad- 

 mitting this as their special use, several considerations should induce their extended 

 planting : 



First — their rapidity of growth. Very many reported cases of growth on the prai- 

 ries of white pine, in partially sheltered localities, confirm the statements of relative 

 growths made by D. C. Scofield, of Elgin, 111. His plants were set when from 6 to 12 

 inches in height, and after twelve years' growth he reports European larch 30 feet 

 high and 8 to 12 inches in diameter; and white pine 35 feet in height and 6 to 12 

 inches through. The writer has white-pine trees, twelve to thirteen years planted, 14 

 inches in diameter and over 30 feet in height. 



Second— the poles thinned out as before stated are valuable for fencing. 



Third— An evergreen plantation breaks up the monotony of prairie scenery, and 

 adds in this way a moneyed value to our real estate in case it is offered for sale. 



Plants of white pine can be bought from dealers, who collect them in the pineries 

 as low as two to three dollars per thousand, in quantity. Such plants should be set in 

 beds for two years, and screened by light brush-covered shed. They may then be set 

 where wanted. Pine and larch may be grown advantageously intermingled in the 

 same i)lantatiou. As before noted, the Scotch pine may be judiciously planted as a 



