290 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



cause its greatest stringency and discomfort in ttie states which have 

 been without extensive natural forests. Each year the immense timbered 

 areas have been lessened in extent; each year timber prices have been 

 going higher and the regions distant from the forest centres have found 

 it correspondingly more difficult to secure the much needed supplies. 

 Already some of the greatest and best of our forest centers have ex- 

 hausted the supplies of their best merchantable timber and lumbermen 

 have been compelled to move to new fields or quit the business. The 

 price which was formerly given for a section of land on which was 

 growing the best timber in the world is now given for a single tree, 

 and the rise of prices will certainly continue. 



The question of conserving our timber supply and securing forest 

 products from forest planting comes home vitally to those most depend- 

 ent upon it. Within the short period of seven years the price for 

 several classes of lumber has risen from fifty to three or four hundred 

 per cent and, despite this high price, are becoming each year more 

 difficult to secure. At a time not long distant, plantations were set out 

 with only the idea of securing comfort from the shade, improved beauty 

 to the farm or the possibility of securing a timber claim. The increased 

 need for timber, however, is teaching the farmer to grow it for profit 

 on much the same basis as his agricultural crops are produced, and 

 today there are thousands of acres planted to forest trees for no other 

 purpose than that of realizing a profit. 



Most of the forest planting of the past has been made on good soil. 

 This was due largely to the settlement of the great, fertile prairie 

 region where tree growth was lacking except along the stream courses 

 and where the need was great for shade trees, wind-breaks, and wood- 

 lots. Gradually, however, there has been a growing tendency for the 

 reforestation of the poor soils over which some of our grandest forests 

 have grown. This work has been followed by forest planting in the 

 sand-hills of Nebraska, the region which has been referred to by some 

 speakers as "the sea of sand-hills." The same tendency has been shown 

 in the work done by the farmer. He has seen rising values on agricul- 

 tural land — especially in the rich farming region of eastern Nebraska — 

 and has been more inclined to plant his woodlot on the poorest soil the 

 farm possesses. 



This is as it should be. Analyses of these poor soils by the best 

 soil experts and practical farmers have shown that they are unsuited 

 for agriculture, while the forester knows that vast areas of these soils 

 are well suited for forest growth. This is true both in this country 

 and abroad. Several of these poor-soil forests have yielded 3 to 5 

 per cent on the money invested and thus given a profit far beyond 

 that expected of them. Our future forests, then, should be grown for 

 the most part on non-agricultural soils. When grown on agricultural 

 soils, the forest plantation should be made to compete with the farm 

 crop as a money producer or else be grown for its combined value 



