582 FOREST-CULTURE IN NEBRASKA. 



By a resolution of tbe State Board of Agriculture, adopted January 8, 

 1874, the second Wednesday of April of each year, was dedicated and 

 set apart as Arbor Bay for the State of Nebraska, and a petition was ad- 

 dressed to the legislature asking that it be made a legal holiday. Al- 

 though this legal sanction has not been given, the i)eople of the State 

 have very generally accepted the appointment, to be observed by plant- 

 ing forest, fruit, and ornamental trees. It is claimed that over twelve 

 millions were planted in 1874. According to the returns of the assessors 

 of that year, there had been planted prior to that date 2,017,537 forest 

 and 52,193 fruit trees, and 56,856 rods of hedge. As there was no law 

 requiring these returns to be made, and as no bUmks were furnished, 

 these statistics have not since been generally reported, although state- 

 ments made from certain counties afford some basis of estimates. 



Much has been done in this State, through associated effort, by the 

 State Board of Agriculture and the State Horticultural Society, as the 

 frequent citations in the following pages will show : 



Premiums have been offered by various societies and by individuals 

 for the planting of hedges, fruit trees, and groves of forest trees, regard 

 being generally had to greatest amount at cheapest rates. The state- 

 ments of applicants were to be verified by witnesses, and were to show 

 the kinds planted, distance apart, mode of preparing the ground and 

 of planting and cultivating, the number of trees living and dead, and 

 the cost of trees and of labor. The premiums have generally been paid 

 in agricultural books or periodicals, to be selected by the successful ap- 

 plicants from a price-list furnished. 



At the January meeting of the State Horticultural Society in 1873, 

 Mr. J. T. Allan was appointed to procure from the Rocky Mountain re- 

 gion a car-load of evergreen trees of the kinds that the society had pro- 

 cured specimens of two years before, and which had proved successful. 

 These were to be distributed in various parts of the State to members 

 of the society and others who would take proper care of them, and 

 agree to report the result to the society at Its next January meeting. 

 The trees were to be distributed gratuitously, not more than a hundred 

 to one person, and those receiving were to pay a prorata share of the 

 expense. 



We have seen no published report, and are not aware that returns as 

 to success or failure were generally made. Mr. Allan, in a personal in- 

 terview a few months since, estimated that about half of them were 

 living. 



In respect to the success that may, under good management, be ex- 

 pected to result from tree-planting in Eastern Nebraska, the following 

 extract from an address delivered before the State Board of Agriculture, 

 by the Hon. J. Sterling Morton, January 26, 1876, lays down his rules and 

 mentions his results as follows : 



First, the original sod should be broken and turned over in thin, evenly laid strips. 

 When completed, a good breaking will appear, like a vast floor of well-laid two-inch 

 plank painted with lampblack. Then plant and cultivate, not to see how much you 

 can manage, but hoiv well. Then come trees: walnuts, cotton woods, willows, mulber- 

 ries, and elms will make the home seem civilized. Tree-planting is an avocation which 

 barbarians never follow. Indians never adorn their wigwams with orchards, nor in- 

 dulge in floriculture. There is no record of an aboriginal horticulturist in any book I 

 have read or heard of anywhere. It may seem a long time to raise a saw-log from the 

 walnut which lies in the palm of your hand, but the rain and frost of winter and the 

 sunshine of summer, together with the fertile and forcing soil of Nebraska, crowd a 

 walnut into the dimensions of a respectable saw-log in lere than twenty-live years. 

 Upon a farm whore I have lived, in Otoe County, for more than twenty years one may 

 see black-walnut trees, which will make good railroad-ties, and some which will do to 

 saw up, which I planted with my own hands. * » * And, again, there may be found 



