y6 EVERGREENS. 



toba. It is among the hardiest. It seeds enormously. A pound 

 will raise a good many trees. Being from the high altitude. It 

 will stand any degree of cold, and we wish it might be tried on 

 a large scale. 



Juniperus Scopulorum, or Silver Cedar. After twenty years' 

 acquaintance with this tree, I think it is by all odds the most 

 beautiful of all our evergreens for the plains. It is fully as hardy 

 as the famous Platte Cedar in its resistance to heat and drouth 

 and cold. It does not blight like that In a damp season. 



An Error Corrected. Many have supposed, and myself 

 amiong them, that the Scopulorum was the mother of the 

 Platte Cedar — that the seed drifted down our streams and that 

 the present variation was the result of long years of different 

 conditions. This is all a. mistake. The two kinds are en- 

 tirely distinct. Their meeting place is some distance to the 

 west of us. The Platte Cedar came up to us from the Sast, 

 while the other came down from the mountains. Tou ilnd it 

 in many parts of the Black Hills. How do we know? One kind 

 has several seeds in a berry, and these seeds have a much 

 softer shell. The Silver Cedar has but one seed to the berry, 

 and it has a very hard and horny shell. One ripens the seed the same 

 year, while the Silver Cedar requires two years for maturity. 

 The birds work on them in the meantime, and It is hard to 

 get those that are matured. Many bushels have been collected 

 the first year and planted, and not a seed grew. 



They are radiant in their robes of silver and emerald and 

 most of them have drooping foliage which looks as If they were 

 shingled by some magical process with the most beautiful 

 covering that ever adorned a tree. The first few years they 

 turn brown like the Platte Cedar, but as they grow older they 

 keep their exquisite coloring in winter, and when the snow is 

 on the ground, contrasting with its whiteness, you see these 

 glorious trees, queenly in their beauty, with garments scintillat- 

 ing like flashing jewels in the eun. I have gathered poor stunt- 

 ed little trees from stony ledges in the Rockies and planted 

 them on our ricli iirairics, and in a year or two, when well 

 I'lioted, they were like prisoners released from bondage, fnd 

 would expand and grow from one to two feet a year. 



The Firs of the Rockies. Remember trees with upright 

 cones are F'rs, and are called Abies. Those with drooping 

 cores are Spruces and are called Piceas. Even today and 

 among intelligent wi iters and nursery-men the matter is 

 badly mixed up, and some write Abies Pioea Pungens. Of 

 course, the Cedar and Pine families go into their respective 

 families. 



The Sub Alplna. When you go up the Rockies to an ele- 

 vation of about 8,000 feet you find a beautiful tree, very sym- 

 metrical in form', trunk straight as an arrow, the bark nearly 



