Canadian Forestry Journal, November, 1919 



449 



will be necessary and they should be at least 

 tour to six rods wide, that is, each strip will be 

 4 to 6 feet across in extent. 



This, with a few short shelter strips round the 

 buildings will make up the ten per cent we are 

 told every really habitable land should have 

 under trees. 



A country planted up in this proportion and 

 in this manner would present, in twenty years, 

 a very different appearance from what the 

 prairie does now. 



Farming and living conditions would be im- 

 proved in various ways. The precious snow of 

 winter would not be blown away and lost as it 

 is now, and there would be a great deal less 

 evaporation from the fields. 



Professor King, of Wisconsin, tells us that 

 the shelter of a belt of trees 15 to 25 feet high 

 caused a difference of sixty-six per cent in 

 evaporation as between a point 20 feet from 

 the trees and a point 300 feet away. Every- 

 body knows how the wmd dries thmgs out, but 

 when it is backed by actual test m this manner 

 we can readily understand the place that tree- 

 planting might be made to take in stablizing 

 the farming industry on the dry prairie. 



SUBSTANTIAL SHELTER. 



If even only ten per cent of the cultivated 

 land were planted in twenty years it would be 

 well worth while. 



It would not take long for the individual 

 farmer to plant his quota. By planting half of 

 each strip, i.e., two acres at a time and that 

 same season preparing the other half for the 

 next year's planting he could have three belts 

 of two acres each, or 12 acres in all across his 

 farm in six years. 



When he was finished, the two acres he had 

 planted first would be six years old and ten to 

 fourteen feet high, already a shelter and the 

 possession of which would more than repay 

 him for his time and trouble. Six years later, 

 that is twelve years after he began, his farm 

 would be substantially sheltered. 



Three men and a team would do the whole 

 season's planting in not more than three days; 

 time that any man can well spare from getting 

 in his crop. Three cultivations of each year's 

 planting would take up some half day each 

 time, and two men would knock down the seed- 

 ing weeds left in the rows in a day. 



After all, two acres across a quarter section 

 consists of only eight rows at four feet apart, 

 and I am satisfied that most men would be sur- 

 prised how little time it would take. 



Systematic planting carried on in this way 

 all over the country would soon change its ap- 

 pearance, and not only its appearance, but it 

 would go far towards changing the whole con- 

 ditions of living on the prairie. There would be 

 at least less wind damage either to crops or 

 soil. There would be less moisture lost from 

 the fields. Stock would be better sheltered and 



NUMBER OF 

 TREES 



NUMBER OF TREES OF VARIOUS SIZES 

 REQUIRED TO MAKE 1000 FEET OF LUMBER 



Courtesy of Conservaijon Commission, State of New York 



