Mar. 1910.] Conditions in Central and Western Kansas. 325 



trees at Dodge City Station branch near the ground. Some of 

 the best measure twenty-four feet high, and several individual 

 trees would each produce a half dozen good posts and as many 

 more stakes. 



In the southern counties of the state Russian mulberry seems 

 much less liable to winter injury. At Ashland, in Clark county, 

 the courthouse square furnishes a very good illustration of 

 the possibilities of this species for posts and poles. A row 400 

 feet long, now eighteen years old, would cut nearly 200 posts 

 and as many fair stakes. 



PLATE 22. Russian mulberry at Ashland. 



The fruit is not of high quality, but is often used when 

 other fruits are scarce, and as it ripens with the cherries and 

 raspberries it seems to attract many birds from the more 

 valuable fruits, and it is frequently planted in the windbreaks 

 about fruit plantations with this end in view. The need of 

 some careful selection and breeding of this species is clearly in- 

 dicated. The species is quite readily grown from cuttings and 

 the better individuals may be propagated and the uncertainty 

 which attends the planting of seedlings be avoided. 



The desirability of the mulberry as a street and lawn tree is 

 lessened by the fact that the fruit attracts flies and birds, and 

 causes the sidewalks beneath them to be in a very unclean con- 



