264 



THE PLAINS SHELTERBELT PROJECT 



naturally and where the benefits of forest growth had become a matter 

 of everyday life. They had a keen appreciation of the changes that 

 could be effected by tree planting, and in typical pioneer fashion they 

 proceeded to produce groves, windbreaks, shelterbelts and shady 

 woodlands. 



FIG. 131. Location of Shelter-belt project. Dotted areas were selected for 



first plantings. 



Shelterbelt planting has been conducted during a period of 50 years 

 or more, stimulated largely through the passage of the Timber Culture 

 Act of 1873. There are already estimated to be 2 million acres of 

 shelterbelts planted in the Dakotas, eastern Montana, eastern Colo- 

 rado, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas since 1873. 



No forest program has so seized the popular sympathy or appealed 

 so strongly, especially in the prairie plains states, as the present pro- 



