The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1874-09-18
TREE PLANTING IN THE WEST.
The Experiment Along the st. Paul
and Pacific Railroad a Success.

The Experiment Along tile II. Paul
and Pacific Railroad a Success.
The main line of the St: Paul and
Pacific road, after it leaves the "Big
Woods" runs through a prairie country
for over hundred miles, which, with
the exception of grove here and there
was treeless until within the past two
years, Hon. George L. Becker, Presi
dent of the road, and Hon. Herman
Trott, Land Commissioner, became con-
vinced that this vast region of country
could he converted into a tree-growing
region, and thought the matter was Of
sufficient importance to try the expert
ment along the line of the road. The st.
Paul Pioneer says that the experiment
has proved successful beyond their ex-
pectaiions. The work was placed in the
hands of Hon. L. b. Hodges, a gentle
man who has had large experience in
tree culture, and who gives the follow
ing particulars of the progress of the
work this season, and also of the present
condition of the trees as all right. We
have had good success with this years
planting. While this season has not been
as favorable for forest tree culture as
1873, yet we are satisfied with the results.
Willow cuttings that were in good con-
dition when planted, have made growth
of eighteen inches to four and half feet.
Cottonwood cuttings have made about
the same growth, but a mnch larger per
cent, failed to come. Lombardy poplar
cuttings came good; have made growth
of one and a half to three and a half feet.
Our little white ash seedlings-from
seed planted in October, 1873, and May,
1874, are beauties-have made strong,
healthy growth, and are every way sat
isfactory. Box-elder ditto. Percentage
of loss on this seasons planting will not
exceed ten per cent, aside from the grass
hopper raid at Herman and Gorton
where they devoured some halfa million
Seeding ash and soft maple, root and
branch. The white willow of the plant
ing of 1873, now fifteen months from the
cutting, exceeds the expectation of most
people. Many thousand of them now
stand ten to twelve~feet high, and very
bushy. Many of them have made
growth of nine feet and upward, on the
main stem, since the 18th of last MAY,
and are already pretty respectable wind
breaks. Cottonwood from the seed,
bage plants in June, 1873, now stand full
ten feet high, with large bushy tops.
They have finished their growths for
1874, and are hardening up for winter.
4 very large proportion of our last years
planting was frozen down from one to
three feet last winter-especially the
Lombardy poplars. White willow and
cottonwood were frozen nearly as bad,
but had regained this loss before June l.
This freezing resulted from an unusual
ly late growth-didn't stop to ripen up
the wood any till winter set in, October
% finding them full of sap and wholly
unprepared. This was an unusual oe-
currence, and may not occur again in
thirty years, The season Of 1874 was its
duplicate. We have had nothing like it
since till the season of 1873. During a re-
cent trip through the southern counties
Of Minnesota I find the same results aris-
ing from the same causes, Our young
trees did not snffer any worse than the
same varieties did in Southern Minneso-
ia; while on the branch line at Becker
station, white willows planted in June,
1873, in light sandy soil, made growth
Of over four feet-some of them six feet
-ripened up well, escaped freezing, and
lcaved out at the terminal buds this
Spring, and are now equal to anything
of the same age anywhere in the south
ern counties. The two or three years old
white ash are doing well-perhaps ten
per cent, have died. European larch
has not done as well as the white ash
Probably twenty per cent succumbed to
the extreme heat-mainly from lack of
fibrous roots. The box elder or ash Ieav-
ed maple did not freeze down any, every
tree leaving out this spring from the
terminal buds, They are absolutely
hardy, and can be found in their greatest
perfection growing spontaneously in the
valley of the Red River of the North.