APPENDIX B 



(See Chapter! Ill and IX) 



Origin of the Afforestation Policy 



By Head Dean CHARLES E. BESSEY of the University of Nebraska 



A good many years ago, after having learned much 

 about the sandhills, and especially after I learned that 

 the sand was always moist a short distance below the 

 surface, I began suggesting that these sandhills might 

 be utilized for growing pines. I had seen great pine 

 forests growing in Michigan, where the soil was as 

 sandy as on the sandiest places of the sandhills of 

 Nebraska, and it seemed to me quite likely that our 

 own moist sand could bear great forests of pines as 

 easily as the sand of Michigan. So in successive reports 

 made to the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture and 

 other similar bodies for a number of years I urged that 

 the experiment of planting pines in the sandhills should 

 be made. 



In the spring of 1891, the attention of Dr. B. E. 

 Fernow having been called to the matter, he sent me 

 word late in the spring that he was ready to make the 

 experiment of planting pines in the sandhills if I would 

 furnish him with the land for such purpose. I was 

 considerably provoked over the matter, as my duties 

 at the University made it entirely impossible for me 

 to take care of a project like this. I had never owned 



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