Trees and Shrubs for the Northern Plains

While there are many excellent publications written about the plant world, there has been no book available which deals specifically with the trees and shrubs of the Northern Great Plains. This is why it is particularly noteworthy that Mr. Donald G. Hoag, the author, has so painstakingly and successfully brought together the scholarly information presented in this book. This information can be as readily used by the amateur who enjoys planting a few trees and shrubs around the house as by the botanist who wants and needs exact and specific technical information.

Another feature of this book is the illustrated winter key. Most keys for plant identification are summer keys depending upon fruit, flowers and leaves for identifying features. A reliable key makes plant material readily identifiable at any time of the year. The summer key also makes use of features evident all the year.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The late Donald G. Hoag was born and raised on a farm at Harwood, ND, a few hundred feet from the site of his grandfather's original log cabin. After undergraduate work at North Dakota State University, he studied at the University of Minnesota until joining the armed forces during World War II. During the war, he was a Japanese interpreter with the Provost Marshal General's Office. After additional graduate study at the University of Minnesota, Hoag joined the staff of the North Dakota State University in 1947. From 1952 until 1955 he devoted full time to operating a nursery-landscape service, but in 1955 he rejoined the faculty of the North Dakota State University.

In 1948 Hoag returned to the farm where he was born. Until his death in 1970 his interests in growing trees, shrubs and other ornamental plants were shared with the development of a purebred Hereford herd which he actively managed at the home farm and on a farm near Glyndon, Minnesota.

Hoag is the author of several bulletins and brochures on ornamental plants. For many years he was in constant demand as a lecturer on many phases of horticulture. He was American co-chairman of the Planning Committee of the International Peace Garden and familiar to horticulturists of western Canada where he was a frequent speaker at meetings of both research horticulturists and nurserymen's associations.