278 ILLINOIS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



3. That they protect trees from the mechanical effects of winds, that 

 would otherwise bend them over and shake off the fruit. 



The sum of these advantages is a large amount. It is probable that 

 the deterioration of trees and fruits, that many claim to take place as the 

 country grows older, is the result not of a decrease of rain-fall or mean 

 temperature, but of the extremes of heat and aridity, of cold and drought 

 that come from a more naked surface, and any thing that will in any 

 degree restore the equilibrium must be of value. 



On the other hand, the disadvantages of shelter-belts are : 



1. They rob the nearer orchard trees of their sustenance and prevent 

 their proper development. 



2. They prevent, to a certain extent, a proper ventilation of the 

 orchard, resulting in an increase of fungoid disease and an unhealthy 

 development of fruit. Even movement on the stem, our grape growers 

 declare, is necessary for the production of the finest grapes. Many of our 

 Southern Illinois grape growers also think it essential to provide for proper 

 ventilation in their vineyards, by widening the spaces between the north 

 and south rows, and having no protection on the north to prevent the free 

 passage of the southern winds. The same is no doubt true to a certain 

 extent of the orchard fruits. 



The first of these disadvantages can be easily guarded against by 

 leaving wide spaces between orchard-belts and the nearer trees. The 

 second is more difficult. It amounts to this : that checking the free pas- 

 sage of air does at once good and harm, and we must, to the best of our 

 ability, endeavor to get the good without the mischief. To do this we 

 would suggest the following hints : 



I. Plant shelter-belts in this State on the west sides of your orchards 

 only. They will thus tend to break the force of the west and northwest 

 winter winds. If the orchard or field is large, it may be well, as Mr. 

 Edwards, of La Moille, suggests, to plant one or more north and south belts 

 through the orchard, as has been done in the Industrial University experi- 

 mental orchards. 2. If the orchard is much exposed on the north, it may 

 answer to protect it with clumps of trees that will not entirely check cir- 

 culation of air. 3. If there be hollows running to the northward, these 

 should be each planted with a clump, to prevent the ascent of the cold 

 air that would at times be driven up them like the ocean waters into a bay. 

 4. Leave the south and east sides open — the latter to be protected by 

 your next neighbor's plantation, if at all, and the former because you wish 

 to admit all south winds and some portion of those from the southwest. 



Protection on the north involves protection on the south to your 

 adjoining neighbor to the northward, and we should therefore be espe- 

 cially careful not to close up the northern ends of our farms with shelter- 

 belts or high hedges. Low hedges. and shelter-clumps on the lines run- 

 ning east and west, and high hedges and continuous belts or clumps on 

 the lines running north and south, would be, to my mind, the best theory 

 for plantation shelter. 



I say nothing of the possibility of combining ornamental with shelter 

 planting, and so adding to the advantages of utility the attractions of 



