184 Nebraska State Horticultural Society. 



take on a different character. The time has come when the commercial 

 side should be especially emphasized. The farmer should plant trees 

 primarily with a view to raising wood as a crop, and to this end only the 

 better and more profitable species should be used. The aim should be 

 to make the tree crop a paying one, even when protection is the primary 

 object of the planting. It is easily possible to secure all the advantages 

 of shelter and ornament, and at the same time derive a revenue from the 

 forest plantation. 



PLANTING FOR PROTECTION. 



In mentioning the purposes for which forest plantings should be 

 made, their protective value must have an important place. The 

 ability of windbreaks and forest belts to protect planted fields from 

 the aridity of the wind, and thus increase crop production is a matter 

 of common observation. 



Mr. E. F. Stephens, Crete, Nebraska, writing under date of March 

 18, 1905, says: "Under the shelter of windbreaks, composed of blocks 

 of nursery stock — shade trees which were too large to sell, in fact had 

 outgrown their usefulness — on the high table lands between the Blue 

 river and Salt creek, we once grew 105 bushels and forty pounds of 

 corn per acre. We attributed part of this success and excellent crop te 

 the protection given by these blocks of nursery stock already grown into 

 trees of sufficient height to give shelter both from the north and 

 south." 



A notable example of the value of wind breaks about an orchard 

 in preventing windfalls, is that mentioned by Mr. Benton Aldrich, John- 

 son, Nebraska, in his report of a heavy windstorm in September, 1895, 

 as published in Bulletin No. 48, Nebraska Station: He says: "A 

 neighbor had a few trees of Ben Davis apples, wholly exposed on nearly 

 level land. They were fairly well loaded with fruit, probably a barrel 

 per tree. After this storm he had less than two apples per tree by 

 actual count. My son had 550 Ben Davis trees which were a little 

 larger, and may have had more fruit per tree at the time. After the 

 storm he had, by estimate, one and one-half bushels per tree left. His 

 orchard is protected by mine, adjoining, which is on much higher land 

 and has rows of maples on the sides and through it, and is eighty rods 

 from east to west, and thirtj'-five rods in extent. There is, so far as I 

 am informed, no doubt that his apples were saved by this natural pro- 

 tection, mounted by this growth of trees." 



However, with the orchardist in Nebraska as with the grower of 

 field crops, probably the chief benefit accruing from wind breaks is 



