110 



" You see from this that the soil has everything to do with the growth of a tree ; 

 the richer the soil the more rapid the advance, and, therefore, I hope that by putting my 

 trees on rich virgin clay soil, I shall have a return in about twenty-Jive years." 



Mr. James T. Allan, of Omaha, Nebraska, writing to the last American Forestry 

 Congress, says that there is a very rapid increase of forests in this comparatively new 

 State, and that to-day there are forty-three nullions of forest trees growing where, but a 

 very fe.w years ago not a tree could be seen on her wide prairies. There are thousands 

 of stock farms in Nebraska, the owners of which are practical tree-planters. The value 

 of groves and belts of the fast-growing poplars and white willow is well understood, and 

 this protection for animak against driving storms, in a country where lumber is not 

 cheap or plenty, seems to have been ordained to meet the want. But this want of lum- 

 ber for all the needs of the farm will not long exist. Hundreds of groves of the earliest 

 planted can now furnish work for the portable saw-mill, and these too, are the once des- 

 pised soft woods, those of the most rapid growth which are now prepared to equal pine 

 in durability. 



The commencement of tree-planting by the Union Pacific Railway, which has yet 

 been confined to deciduous trees of some ten varieties, and mountain evergreens about 

 their stations, so far is successful, and will soon make these grounds objects of pleasant 

 attraction to the thousands who are daily moving across the continent. The intention of 

 the railway is to plant tracts of considerable extent at different points for a futvtre tree 

 supply, and by example induce others to plant the seeds for a crop of railway sleepers, 

 which must be early harvested. 



Mr. W. M. Pennel, of Russel, Kansas, says : — 



" At least one-half of my 6,000 black walnut trees are bearing fruit this season. 

 3,500 box alder (ash-leaved maple) transplanted this spring, are all living ; and notwith- 

 standing the severe drought which is now parching our section of the country, my trees 

 are making a fine growth." 



ilr. John DougaU, Editor of the New York " Witness," contributed to the American 



Forestry Congress, such a concise and complete resume of the whole subject that I insert 



it here : — 



"The greater part of the North American continent was covered with forests when 

 first invaded by Europeans. These forests had stood for many ages undisturbed, except 

 by the slow decay of one generation of trees, if we may so speak, and the slow growth of 

 another. These operations had been going on simultaneously since the creation, or since 

 the last great convulsion of nature, and the annual falling of leaves and the gradual de- 

 cay of branches and trunks had covered the earth with a vegetable mould of considerable 

 depth. 



" A Universal 2fine of Wealth. — This mould, possessing all the elements of fertility, 

 was an immense treasure, everywhere abounding, and tempting the settler to clear away 

 the trees, and reap the benefit of the virgin soU. When trees were cut down, a crop, 

 which had probably required several hundred years to grow, was reaped in a few weeks 

 or years, thereby leaving the earth bare, and the vegetable mould was used up in a few 

 years by continued cropping in wheat, corn and potatoes. The writer knew an excellent 

 bush lot which produted great crops at first to be reduced in ten years to mere rocks and 

 stones. And this process of exhausting the vegetable soil went on everywhere as fast as 

 settlements advanced. Of course where the subsoU was good, and was turned up in part 

 to mix with the vegetable mould, fertility continued much longer, but, in course of time. 



