The planting of evergreens about the prairie home will become more general as people learn to appreciate their true value. Their evergreen character gives them an important advantage over other trees in that they afford protection against the fierce winds of winter as well as the drying winds of summer. This quality of their foliage also gives warmth and color to the landscape at a season.when it is naturally bleak and cheerless.

Appreciating the bareness o f the prairie and realizing the need of tree growth, the early settlers of this state entered upon a period of extensive tree planting. Dealing with new conditions of both soil and climate much of this early planting was necessarily experimental in character. In the early seventies the Horticultural Section of the Iowa Experiment Station instituted an extensive experiment in the testing of new species of evergreens for the purpose of determining their hardiness and value for Iowa conditions. These plantings have been added to from year to year. Nearly all of the species of evergreens indigenous to both the Old and the New World which are available commercially have at some time during this period been given a place in these plantings.