The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1875-04-22
Plant the Trees.

WE have often urged upon our read
ers, especially in the country. more at
tention to tree culture. We have from
time to time given them statistics of the
amount of timber lands remaining in
this country, and Of the rapid rate at
which they are disappearing from year
to year. As an economical question, that
of the timber supply bids fair, at no dis
tant day, to become one Of the most i'm
portant as well as the most serious with
which we shall have to contend. The
subject may be hackneyed enough, for
it is repeatedly presented through the
columns of almost every journal in the
land; still, as what is everybody's bust
ness always seems to be nobody's in
particular, it does not seem 10 attract
that attention at the hands of those who
own the acres and cultivate them which
it so eminently deserves. People every
where are almost criminal in their neglect
Of this legitimate branch of farm indus
try and production There is no ex-
cuse whatever for such procrastination.
Forest trees can be raised from the seed
quite as easily as corn or potatoes; and
they are sold by most of our enterpris-
ing nurserymen by the thousands and
tens of thousands for rates which seem
merely nominal 1t costs much less for
a thousand yearling trees of some of the
useful standard yarieties-excellent for
shade and fuel bo'h-than it does for q
1000 very bad cigars! A farm
which is encircled with a double row
of these cheap trees will in five years
command several dollars per acre more
than the adjoining domain of Mr.. Sloth
fui, who never gives the subject a
thought. Considering the value OF
growing trees, Immediately and remotely,
and the ease with which they can be Sc
cured, It is one Of the things at which
we never cease wondering, that there is
not perfect mania among the farmers
for planting them. We advert to the
subject al this time for two reasons: l,
because the time for planting them is at
hand, and We wish to give our readers
an emphatic hint in short article which
they will not tire of reading; and 2, to
call attention to one direction in which
they afford protection. We have just
passed through hard winter, during
which the winds have ragged with more
than wonted ferceness. One conse-
quence of these winds, on thousands of
farms throughout the West and North.
west. has been the blowing away of i'm
mense quantities of the rich top soil.
In many places the great snowdrifts
which have been melting away during
these past two weeks have been coated
deep with fine black dirt from the
plewed Fields. We miss this but little
now, because of the immense fertility of
the soil; but it is large and most IN
profitable drain Upon any mans farm,
and in time it will produce
sterility. 1t is almost as bad for
a field which is kept in tillage year
after year, as many of ours in the West
are, as for man to have tubercles on
his lungs. He may manage to go about
his business for few years, but the con-
slant waste will take him under sooner
or later. But this waste of the soil from
these bitter winter winds may be meas
urably arrested by judiciously planting
belts Of timber on the lines from which
they generally come. Another benefit:
If your neighbor is too law to do any-
thing OF the kind it viii pay you to plan,
trees so as to catch the soil which is
blown from his fields, as the railroad
snow-fences catch the snow.
To make this subject as practical as
possible We advise our readers out on
the prsirie farms West and Northwest
to send postal-card 10 their nearest
nurseryman sDd ask for bis catalogues,