Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1870 [PAGE 402]

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388

with leaves the first winter. Leave the plants two years in the beds before transplanting. Birds are fond of the seeds, and must be watched. In getting trees from the forests, get them as quickly as possible, and put a shade of laths over them. Plant them closely in the bed ; leave them in the bed generally two years, and then plant the rows two and a half feet apart, but the trees close together in the row. We sowed our seeds last year at Green Bay. The atmosphere is not so dry there; the birds are the only trouble. I prefer to plant evergreens when in a state of rest, but they can be moved in a moist day, until late in the season. In that case I would plant late in the evening, water heavily, and protect them the next day from the sun. Trees for belts I plant ten feet apart in the row, and break the joints with the next row. Red cedar has generally succeeded pretty well until three or four years ago. Hemlock is grown best in partial shade. The American Yew is fine in the shade. It is similar in leaf to the European and to the Hemlock. It is propagated readily from cuttings in the shade, late in May. The Norway Spruce will bear shearing well; as also the Arbor Vitae. [In answer to queries]—When the branches are too thick, taking out the alternate branches often does very well. It will answer to move seedlings that have not been transplanted if you are careful. I would just as soon have trees from the woods; but they must be carefully handled, and be small ones, not more than four to twelve inches in height. Red pine is difficult to handle. Austrian pine is attacked by a fungus. I find it here at Rockford. Siberian Arbor Vitas does very well here. In the shade it roots readily from cuttings made with a part of the last year's wood left on.

ELMER BALDWIN, of Farm Ridge, chairman of the State Board of Charities, delivered an address on RURAL ECONOMY.

The subject assigned me furnishes rich material for an extended course of lectures. The varied interests of the industrial classes—that great wealthproducing portion of mankind, the basis of individual and national wealth, growth and prosperity, the great patient, quiet class, which .bears the world of business and activity on its shoulders—can be but briefly noticed; certainly not fully analyzed and discussed in a single essay. I shall only attempt to seize on some salient points of the subject, and only discuss those in a discursive and disconnected manner. I shall briefly allude to the commercial, judicial, educational and social interests of the rural population ; and, in doing so, shall not willingly draw invidious distinction between classes and pursuits, believing that society should form one harmonious whole; that the different occupations and callings, when necessary to the workings of society, should be mutual in aiding each other, and that no improper jealousy should mar the practical usefulness of each. But, at the same time, I would not hesitate to pass any deserved censure,