192 



back to 1789, when a group of German 

 Mennonites, who emigrated to the 

 Russian Steppes, began the shelterbelts 

 that since have been extended to thou- 

 sands of miles. The term "shelterbelt" 

 was used as early as 1833, so it is appar- 

 ent that some thought for controlling 

 wind erosion by use of trees was in 

 existence over a century ago. Since the 

 days of the shelterbelt project, initiated 

 in the Great Plains some 14 years ago, 

 the term has become part of the every- 

 day language of farmers on the Plains. 



Few tree planters were among the 

 earliest settlers of the United States. 

 They came when the westward migra- 

 tion started to the prairies of Illinois 

 and the Great Plains; those pioneers 

 realized that it was going to take more 

 than a sod house to give them the pro- 

 tection to which they had been accus- 

 tomed in the wooded East. It was not 

 surprising, therefore, that a plantation 

 of trees often shared with the garden 

 the first patch of sod that was bro- 

 ken. Wildings collected along nearby 

 streams comprised their planting stock. 

 We have records of some of these plant- 

 ings in Nebraska Territory as early as 

 1854; many are still alive, monuments 

 to the courage of the pioneers and evi- 

 dence of the desirability of using hardy, 

 native planting stock. Later immi- 

 grants from Europe often brought tree 

 seeds with them from their old homes. 



The passage of the Homestead Law 

 in 1862 brought more settlers to the 

 Great Plains and the need for more 

 tree planting. Kansas was the first, in 

 1865, to provide a tree-bounty law in 

 efforts to encourage more planting. 

 This was followed in 1869 by Nebraska 

 and the Dakota Territory which passed 

 tax-exemption laws that favored tree 

 planting. J. Sterling Morton, third 

 Secretary of Agriculture, founded Ar- 

 bor Day and saw its first official cele- 

 bration in his home State of Nebraska 

 in 1872. It was primarily through his 

 encouragement that the Timber Cul- 

 ture Act was passed by Congress in 

 1873. Although it helped to stimulate 

 tree planting, probably fewer than one- 

 third of the trees established during 



Yearboo^ of Agriculture 1949 



the time the act was in force can be 

 attributed directly to it. 



It has been the history of tree plant- 

 ing throughout the world that the 

 establishment of windbreaks and shel- 

 terbelts has not progressed fast enough 

 to keep pace with the needs without 

 some assistance by the Government. 

 The thousands of miles of shelterbelts 

 that now protect millions of acres of 

 farm lands in Russia; the mile after 

 mile of tree strips in Jutland, without 

 which farming would be impossible; 

 similar planting in Hungary; the 18,- 

 510 miles of tree belts planted in the 

 Great Plains shelterbelt from North 

 Dakota to Texas ; and the 211 million 

 trees planted to shelterbelts and wind- 

 breaks in the Prairie Provinces of Can- 

 ada all owe their success to sound 

 Government policies put into effect 

 through well-administered and Gov- 

 ernment-assisted projects. 



There was a period in the United 

 States after the repeal of the Timber 

 Culture Act in 1891 when little public 

 encouragement was given to tree plant- 

 ers. A renewal of interest was shown in 

 1904 with the passage of the Kincaid 

 Act and later, in 1916, by the inclusion 

 of the demonstrational tree planting 

 in the program of the Northern Great 

 Plains Field Station near Mandan, 

 N. Dak. 



The available records through Jan- 

 uary 1, 1948, indicate that some 

 123,191 miles of windbreaks and shel- 

 terbelts have been planted since the 

 middle of the past century. Of 96,596 

 miles planted through private initia- 

 tive, 39,400 are accounted for by sin- 

 gle row Osage-orange hedges planted 

 between 1865 and 1939 by farmers of 

 Kansas, encouraged by a State bounty. 



The shelterbelt project, sometimes 

 referred to as the Prairie States For- 

 estry Project, was established in 1934, 

 a time of serious drought, dust storms, 

 and depression. Its purpose was to 

 plant badly needed shelterbelts and at 

 the same time provide work for people 

 in the drought-stricken Great Plains. 



In the Great Plains between 1935 

 and 1942, 18,510 miles of field shelter- 



