Evergreens for the Western Prairies. 23 



number will stand upon a rod of bed, — about a million plants to the acre. 

 I saw over six acres of these evergreen seed-beds at Mr. Douglass's nursery. 

 They are also raised to considerable extent by Samuel Edwards, near La- 

 moile, Bureau County, 111., and by many other nursery-men in the West. 



They need a little winter-protection for two or three winters by a little 

 brush, straw, or hay. They are thinned out from year to year by sales 

 and transplanting ; and should all be transplanted at three years old : they 

 are then about six inches high, some more, some less. They may now be 

 transplanted to nursery-rows two feet apart and eight inches in the row, 

 where they can stand two years ; then transplanted a second time to rows 

 three or four feet apart, and one and a half in the row. Nursery-men are 

 apt to crowd their stock of all kinds too closely together to give it room to 

 spread itself It is true that nursery-stuff grown tall and slim will pack 

 much better in bo.xes when sold ; but let me caution purchasers against 

 getting too many trees of any kind into a small box. The best part of 

 your purchase is large boxes for a small number of trees, closely packed ; 

 in other words, spreading, stocky trees. 



The Norway spruce grows and transplants about as well as any ever- 

 green when it is young, and makes the hardiest and best shade and wind- 

 break when it is older. And yet the white pine and Scotch pine are not 

 inferior to the Norway spruce, and grow a little more rapid. After two or 

 three transplantings, in six or eight years they will be four to six feet high, 

 and should be set in their permanent place, where they will the second 

 year, if properly treated and well cultivated, commence a rapid growth of 

 two to three feet a year, and their branches spread nearly as far as their 

 height. I have seen the Norway spruce, sixteen years set out, that had 

 spread thirty feet from tip to tip of its branches, and about twenty-five feet 

 high, — a thing of great beauty. Ye that dread the bleak winds of winter, 

 think of such wind-breaks, and set them about your buildings, orchards, 

 and farms. 



How often I have seen t!ie beautiful little evergreens set in the grass-plat 

 near the house ! The grass and weeds should all be kept away for 

 several feet around them, and the ground cultivated as nicely as for any 

 garden vegetables or flowers. Some annual flowers may be sown about 

 them to beautify and cover the grou-id. 



