Once on a time it was fashionable to believe that there was something in the climate or the soil of the prairies which accounted for the absence of arborescent growth. No one would plant trees because every one knew they would not grow.

The whole United States is indebted to those early pioneers who proved the falsity of this idea. The time will come when these men will be sought for, that posterity may do them honor. In an address at Montreal, Dr. Warder, referring to these benefactors, pays a handsome compliment to Jesse W. Fell, of Bloomington. There is a large plantation of trees from which the village of Larch-wood takes its name, planted through the efforts of Mr. Fell, who in a letter to Dr. Warder says: "On sixty-one quarter-sections of land we had planted 323 acres of forest trees, that are now in various stages of development, from those newly planted to trees nearly forty feet high. Further, we had planted on the survey lines, within a more limited range, 53.68-100 miles of willow-hedging, and one mile of Osage orange. The latter utterly died out at the end of the second year."