CHAPTER III. 



EVERGREENS FOR PROFIT. 



One serious ti'ouble wilh Americans is that they are im- 

 patient and cannot wait for results. Too often anything that 

 will last longer than a corn stalk or a straw stack is not to be 

 taken into account. Then we are too restless, inclined to 

 sell and move. In this respect our foreign-born farmers 

 far surpass us. They do not sell; and, strange as it may 

 seem, the nurserymen have more calls for trees, shrubs and 

 flowers from them than from the American born. The mem- 

 ories of the fatherland come over with the emigrant. He 

 remembers the permanence and beauty of the old estates of 

 the rich, and when he becomes rich himself and owns those 

 broad and fertile acres he rememhers how it was in the old 

 country. His 1-and becomes his home and he plans accordingly. 

 Too often the "get-rich-quick" spirit invades the farm and 

 nothing must be thought of which does not bring in quick 

 returns. Too often the rich lands of the West have been push- 

 ed and crowded like slaves. They have been forced to their 

 utmost without any returns made — no manure — no fertiliza- 

 tion; simply pushed to the point of exhaustion. 



But few men sit down and plan for the future or look 

 ahead for half a century. Often there will be low, wet places 

 whiclTi produce nothing but weeds. I frequently ride on a 

 road which separates two farms. On one side is a grove of 

 cotton woods, which are making a splendid growth, and in 

 30 years there will be lumber enough on an acre to build a good 

 barn. The other side has a, piece of land just as rich, with 

 loam 10 feet deep, and it has never raised anything but weeds, 

 and those weeds might have been turned into splendid trees 

 which in time would have been worth $200.00 to the acre. It 

 pays to have a little planning. Farms are all the while ris- 

 ing in value and every nook and corner should be put to some 

 use. Plant groves and windbreaks. Those side hills will be 

 ideal places for evergreens. They will hold the soil that re- 

 mains and their needles will form a new humus. 



There is profit in evergreens. Millions of acres of worth- 

 less sand in Nebraska and the great "West can be made worth 

 $100.00 per acre in twenty-five or thirty years, and more in 

 fifty yeais. This seems a long time to wait for sawlogs but 



