182 Nebraska State Horticultural Society. 



FOREST PLANTING IN EASTERN NEBRASKA. 

 By Frank G. Miller, Professor of Forestry in the University of Nebraska, 



Nebraska is essentially a prairie state, only about 3 per cent of the 

 total area being originally covered M'ith. timber. The early settler com- 

 ing from a forested region, as he usually did, to one where timber was 

 scarce and the climate often severe, very naturally turned his attention 

 at once to the question of forest planting. Hardly a home was estab- 

 lished that was not shielded with trees. The aim primarily was at pro- 

 tection against the storms and winds that so frequently visited Nebraska 

 prairies. The commercial side was considered only Incidentally. The 

 tendency, therefore, was to select the quick growing species, especially 

 such as were near at hand and could be had cheaply. In a word, the 

 general character of the planting was temporary rather than permanent, 

 and while there has been a comparatively large amount of tree planting 

 done, as a matter of fact the major part of it is in poor condition today. 

 Not only a rather inferior class of trees has been used too generally, 

 but often the selection, though a good one, was illy adapted to the con- 

 ditions in hand. Thus it frequently happens that a species adapted 

 primarily to bottom soils, has been planted indiscriminately on the up- 

 lands. Or, it may be that a species has been planted on sandy land 

 when it could hope to succeed only in a loam with a clay subsoil. This 

 indiscriminate planting on the false supposition that a tree will grow 

 anywhere has been an important source of failure in past planting. 



Still another factor to be noted in accounting for failure in past 

 planting and the present poor condition of so large a proportion of the 

 plantations is the lack of care and management. There is hardly a 

 planted grove in Nebraska that has been managed with the same care 

 that the enterprising farmer gives to his field crops. Instead the vast 

 majority of the plantations have had little or no care at all. 



AREA PLANTED. 



Taking the average of the figures as returned by the assessors for 

 1903 and 1904, Nebraska has nearly 300,000 acres of planted timber. 

 Of this amount approximately 250,000 acres, or about 83 per cent of 

 the total is in the territory east of the 99th Meridian. Since this terri- 



