Wyoming Experiment Station. 



the cause of a large portion of the loss, and one of the principal 

 factors in the discouragement that tree planters feel. Wyo- 

 ming's population is still largely adventive, rather than indig- 

 enous. The practices which our people employed elsewhere 

 they naturally think ought to work here. Forgetting the dry- 

 ness of the atmosphere, the shortness of the . season and the 

 slow growth under the reduced atmospheric pressure of this 

 altitude, they slash the trees with the abandon that they prac- 

 ticed "in the East," With the impatience born of the zeal we 

 show for quick results, we secure large trees for planting. 

 Naturally they are deprived of most of their roots in the dig- 

 ging. To give them a slight show for their lives, the branches 

 are lopped off and half (more or less) of the main axis is re- 

 moved. Then these tall stumps are set out in the vain hope 

 that they may develop rapidly into healthy, sightly trees. ( See 

 Fig. i, plate III.) No matter what may have been our ex- 

 perience elsewhere, it is very certain that nothing but disap- 

 pointment can come from such practice here. Not one in ten 

 of such trees will prove permanently satisfactory. We shall 

 not only suffer the loss of our money, but also, and that is 

 worse, great loss of time in the attainment of the results we 

 seek. The usual experience with such trees is about as fol- 

 lows: They are set out. Late in the spring they put out a 

 cluster of new shoots near the top, but often a foot or more 

 from the cut end. (See Fig. 2, plate III.) If the season be a 

 favorable one, so that these twigs mature, they will survive 

 the winter, and the next season this umbrella-like crown makes 

 further growth, and the stumps are now crowned by a small 

 spherical mass of crowded branches. In the center of this may 

 be observed the cut end of the stem protruding as a dead snag. 

 From this the bark soon peels off, . water begins to enter the 

 decaying end, the heart wood decomposes under the action of 

 bacteria, which find entrance along with the water, and the 

 tree soon has running sores lower down upon the stem, where 

 branches have been severed. If the root-system has made 



