THE NOKTH DAKOTA FARMSTEAD 37 



LOCATION OF WINDBREAKS OR SHELTER BELTS 



Around the entire farmstead except perhaps along the east side, 

 a thick windbreak or shelter belt of trees should be planted so as to 

 give protection to all the buildings, gardens and lawns. If the house 

 faces either north, south or west, it may not be desirable to plant a 

 solid shelter belt in that direction because of obstructing a view of 

 the road. (In these cases it might be possible to purchase a strip 

 of land across the road and plant the shelter belt there, planting 

 the trees some distance from the road to avoid closing the road with 

 snow drifts. Clusters of trees may be planted along the road with 

 a low hedge between the tree clusters. This will give some protection 

 as well as a good view of stretches of the road from the house and of 

 the house from the road. 



MAKING A SHELTER BELT 



The shelter belt should be 50 to 75 feet wide. The rows should be 

 about 9 feet apart, to better facilitate cultivation with two horse 

 implements, with the young trees about 2 feet apart in the row; 

 these should later on be thinned out to 4 or 8 feet interspaces. In 

 sections having rather dry soils the tree rows might be 10 or 12 

 feet apart so as to provide more moisture for each tree with a more 

 rapid growth resulting. The outer rows should be made up of fast 

 growing trees such as Willow, Box Elder and Soft Maple, to serve 

 as a protection for the inner rows which should consist of the larger 

 slower growing, longer lived trees, with greater timber value. Such 

 trees are the Green Ash, Red and Burr Oak, Basswood, European 

 Larch, Rock Maple, Black Walnut, Black Wild Cherry, and Elm. 

 The outer rows of willows should be planted close together and 

 allowed to branch near the ground in order to furnish the maximum 

 amount of protection. 



On the edge of the lawn next to the shelter belt, plant trees and 

 shrubs of varying heights and colors, in natural groups with curved 

 outlines to break the abrupt straight line where lawn and shelter belt 

 meet. Trees valuable for this purpose are : Black Hills Spruce, Jack 

 Pine and Western Yellow Pine (also called Bull Pine and Ponder osa 

 Pine) European Larch, Hackberry, Elm, White Birch, Mountain 

 Ash, Flowering Crab Apples, Niobe and Wisconsin Weeping Willow, 

 Silver Poplar, Quaking Asp, Russian Golden Willow and Russian 

 Olive. 



SNOW TRAP 



A hedge or single row of trees should be planted about 75 to 100 

 feet outside of the outer row of trees in the shelter belt, to act as a 

 snowtrap. By this means the snow will accumulate in the intervening 

 space. The snow will not then pile up around the house and across 

 the drives. Without this snow trap many of the young trees in the 



