336 Forest Tree Planting. 



and for this purpose no trees are so useful and practical as those grow- 

 ing at our very doors, indigenous to our soil. 



I would have exotics tried, experimented with. Treat them with 

 due consideration, with all hospitality ; but treat them as strangers, not 

 as bosom friends. You must "• summer and winter a man before you 

 know him ; " much more a tree. And where is it that my friend finds 

 that the " black walnut is not by any means promising as a timber tree 

 for the prairie, except in favorable localities".'' And why remark, in 

 the same connection, that *■' it requii'es from one to two centuries to bring 

 it to perfection for lumber " ? Now, is not this true of all timber trees? 

 Why, then, make the black walnut the scape-goat? The fact is, no 

 tree has attained such magnitude, or become so useful for posts, rails, 

 and lumber, in the brief thirty years that this part of Illinois has been 

 settled, as the black walnut. Why, yonder is a grove of butternut and 

 black walnut, on my farm, in full view from where I am now writing, 

 which sets at rest the question of adaptability and practicability of both 

 these species. I have (from the seed), one year old plants of the fol- 

 lowing trees: black walnut, white walnut (butternut), red elm, hard 

 maple, soft or white maple, yellow poplar (tulip tree), blue ash, white ash, 

 linden or bass wood, and white elm, least useful and least valuable. Of 

 course I have not mentioned those tenth-rate trees, cotton-wood, ailan- 

 thus, black locusts (good but for the borers), catalpa, and such like, of 

 which I wish to say now, as I have often said before, that such are unfit 

 for a white man to raise. Indeed, they have no desirable qualities which 

 a farmer " is bound to respect." 



The walnuts are at our doors. Everybody can, and ought to plant 

 them. The ash and the maples are equally attainable, and the elms 

 will come themselves if we let them. 



I know it is almost heresy to speak against the white elm in New 

 England, especially since so lavishly indorsed by Mr. Beecber. But 

 for all purpose, save sLade and ornament it is simply a " scalawag." 

 But why my friend should mention in the society of respectable trees 

 such an unmitigated nuisance as "• silver poplar," is amazing. 



As to the conifers, I most heartily indorse them, and can show some 

 worthy specimens. I wish also to say that such men as Douglas, Ed- 

 wards, Schofield, and a host of others, ai^e well deserving the gratitude 

 of all Prairiedom. 



With no desire to detract from the just fame of my good friend, but 

 with desire to correct even a trifling error on so important a matter as 

 tree planting, I beg to subscribe myself his sincere friend. 



