300 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



properly laid out without considerable thought having been devoted 

 to the adjustment of the subdivisions of the same. Belts of planted 

 trees can very conveniently be placed at the borders of the fields. 

 In such positions they will serve the purpose of windbreaks and 

 also not interfere with the convenient tillage of the land. 



The position of the buildings on a farm should have very great 

 weight in determining the location of the forest plantations. The 

 usual tendency is to plant the trees too close to the buildings and 

 thus to create conditions causing snowdrifts in winter to cover up 

 the residence and barns and hinder the work on the farm. Provision 

 for proper circulation of air in the summer should also he made. 

 For this reason forest belts on a farmstead should enclose a liberal 

 allowance of space around the buildings. The position of the build- 

 ings with reference to other parts of the farm and with reference to 

 neighboring farms will also determine the position of the trees. For 

 instance, if a natural timber belt on a neighboring farm affords pro- 

 tection from the north wind, the planter would hardly be justified in 

 planting a belt on his own land for this purpose. He could dis- 

 tribute his planted trees in some other direction to greater advantage. 

 The need of shelter and windbreaks is so urgent on the majority of 

 prairie farms, particularly in the Red River Valley, that this subject 

 cannot well be emphasized too much. It is difficult to estimate the 

 amount of comfort that can be derived on a bleak prairie from a 

 shelter belt of forest trees. 



Every forest plantation on the unprotected prairies of Minnesota 

 should have a secondary protection, consisting of a separate planta- 

 tion. This secondary plantation has been named a snowbreak. The 

 purpose of the snowbreak is to cause the snow to drift outside the 

 boundaries of the main forest plantation or outside the farmstead. 

 As is well known, the snow drifts on the lee side of the obstructions, 

 causing the drift, rather than on the windward side. For instance, 

 a belt of trees running east and west along the north side of a 

 public road will cause the road to fill up with snowdrifts, providing 

 the prevailing wind be from the north. If the forest plantation is 

 in the form of a block, the snow will pile up in the whole block al- 

 most to a uniform depth, and during the long winter season it is 

 not likely to melt off in such a situation ; on the contrary, it will con- 

 stantly accumulate, sometimes getting to be twenty-five or thirty feet 

 in depth. When it begins to melt in the spring time it will settle 

 down on the branches of the trees and crush them. Many an ex- 

 cellent grove in western Minnesota and the eastern Dakotas has been 

 almost ruined in this manner by the drifting of snow. If the planta- 



