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them take a strip 100 or 50 yards wide. It had better be on good land, which 

 should be thoroughly ploughed. Keep the weeds well under, and in a short time 

 there will be an excellent growth. It will not be long before valuable timber will 

 be so scarce that these strips will yield a handsome return. I do not know of any- 

 thing better than white ash. It is a very useful tree; and our friend, Mr. Grover, 

 of Norwood, whom T see here, has succeeded vei-y well in his part of the country. I 

 have seen it tried in countries where it would not do, but here it does well. In a 

 few years the trees will be found to be 6 inches thick, and by planting close and 

 keeping them trimmed you will have trees Avithout knots. If you plant trees in 

 the opening you will have branches low down, and every branch means a knot. 

 This is the style of wind-break I should like to see generally introduced. My 

 opinion always has been that it is best to take the trees of the forest. If you go 

 into the forest you will find plenty of white ash and black ash; but if you pull them 

 up you find the roots so long and straggling that you have poor success. If, how- 

 ever, these trees be twice transplanted you will grow a bunch of roots, and 

 then you can work with them satisfactorily. If an influential body like yours would 

 only press it, I have been of the opinion that the Government might be induced to 

 come to the front and give away a large number of these trees to persons who need 

 them and would take care of them. That is done at Washington. Everyone does 

 not get large numbers of trees, but there is a general distribution. It is not neces- 

 sary that the Government should go into the nursery business; but orders might 

 be given to nurserymen to send so many to this farmer and so many to that. That 

 could be done • in this country, and many would, no doubt, ajjply for them. "We 

 should then should see Ontario covered with little groves of trees, and we would not be 

 under the impression, as we now are, that all the valuable timber is going out of the 

 country. We should see it rising on all sides, and we should feel that there would 

 be plenty of timber for all economic purposes. I would like to say a word or two 

 on evergreen wind-breaks, which are very good things in their way. I have seen 

 lists which were published of the most valuable evergreens in use in the United 

 States, but I would not myself care to plant those evergreens, which are generally 

 used there or are generally found to be profitable there. I would much rather look 

 around and see what trees have grown here, and plant those; because I have known 

 so many people go to a great deal of trouble and expense in planting tjees and find- 

 ing afterwards that they would not answer. What I have found to succeed here is our 

 white pine, native spruce and Norway spruce. When 1 was travelling last year 

 through England and Scotland I found that everybody was planting and protecting 

 his land by trees. In the centuries past there had been a wave of tree-cutting, but 

 now there is coming a wave of tree-planting. The same feeling is coming to j)revail 

 in Ontario, and we should do what we can to make our country something like 

 what it formerly was. I wish I could describe to you what kind of country it was 

 when covered with a forest years ago — how much richer it was, how pleasant the 

 seasons, and how much easier we could grow crops. You are a body having great 

 influence, and I trust you will do what you can to have farmers growing more 

 trees. 



Mr. ERA^fKLAND. — Have you seen arbor vitte gi'owing as a hedge ? 



Mr. Phipps. — There is an excellent sample near Toronto. It is nearly 20 feet 

 high and nearly 12 feet wide at the base. It makes a beautiful dark green hedge. 

 Wherever cedar will grow there is nothing better. I would not, knowing what I 

 do of cedar — although people say it will grow on high localities — risk it there ; but 

 if I had anything to be grown near its natural habitat I would prefer cedax to 

 anj'thing else for a wind-break. 



Prof. Saunders. — Mr. Phipps will find that very fine hedges have been 

 grown on dry land. I have grown cedar hedges luxuriantlj^ on a dry, sandy soil, 

 and I think it would not be wise, although that is not its natural habitat, that the 

 statement that it would only grow under those conditions should go to the public 

 unchallenged. There is not a very great deal of difterence in the growth of arbor 

 vitse on dry or damp soils, if the seasons are reasonably moist. I also wish to say 



