I gave a talk at Hastings not long ago and made a plea for the preservation of the native trees. You should have seen the number of old people who stayed to talk to me and all spoke of how it hurt when one of the big trees they loved was felled. A flat country like Nebraska needs great forking trees like cottonwood or poplar. The poplar gets winter killed in Nebraska, but it also does that in Lombardy. The cottonwood is the only tree of beautiful form that grows easily and naturally in this state without any care.
Farmers say the cottonwood draws moisture from the fields.
I am not asking them to plant more, but to let stand those great trees that are dear to the pioneers. Their faculty of drawing moisture makes the cottonwoods needed in low places along the roads to take up water which would otherwise form a slough. On high barren pasture land, where nothing else will grow, the cottonwood will thrive. Just as great indifference is shown to the groves of ash and native elms. The farmers will not take the trouble to thin them.