Evergreens for the Western Prairies. 27 1 



of this rigorous climate, and as we learn to raise, cultivate, and transplant 

 them. I have long been a resident of this prairie country ; and when I first 

 came into this new country, when settlements were first beginning, it was 

 an unsolved question by many, whether the broad prairies would ever be 

 settled. Many persons could not see how a farmer could live without his 

 piece of woods to go into to get his fire-wood and fencing, and the many 

 other indispensable uses for which wood and timber are almost daily wanted. 

 But I was not many months in learning that trees could be planted and 

 grown, yes, by the acre or tens of acres, as easily as the forests of the 

 timbered countries could be cleared ; yes, far easier : but it would take a 

 longer time. 



Now, from Chicago west to the Missouri River, about four hundred miles, 

 no prairies are too broad for the settlements to stretch entirely across, and 

 to make good farms, and raise good crops, and stock of animals, and 

 do it with far less inconvenience than they could have done in a dense 

 forest. Yet they are slow to plant trees for the real benefit of their farms 

 and their stock. But they are fast learning that they are paying twice as 

 much for their fencing, fire-wood, and other timber, as it will cost to raise 

 it on their own land ; and the prospect is that the cost will continue 

 to increase fi-om year to year, as the pineries of the North become cut 

 out. 



After the farmers and villagers have planted many trees of the cotton- 

 wood, white maple, and elm, and partly broken the winter-blasts, they be- 

 gin to see that a few evergreens are wanted. About the cities and towns, 

 the people are ornamenting their grounds very generally with these beauti- 

 ful unchanging trees ; and as the farmers, and the farmers' wives and 

 daughters, come to town, they see the taste displayed around the homes of 

 the town-people, and insist on having their homes ornamented also. The 

 demand for evergreen-trees in this North-west has been on the increase 

 for some years past ; so much so, that the nurseries sold out tolerably clean 

 last spring. There are but few evergreens of good size, say two to six 

 feet high, left in the nurseries, so far as my knowledge goes. 



Some persons make a regular business of getting small evergreens from 

 the woods of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. These varieties are 

 white pine, Norway pine, yellow pine, fir-balsam, American spruce, hem 



