Canadian Forestry Journal, December, 1919 



515 



PRAIRIE TREE PLANTING IS GOOD BUSINESS 



Toronto Globe Editorial. 



For three successive seasons, in certain parts 

 of southern Saskatchewan and Alberta, con- 

 ditions have been such that the farmers have 

 failed to secure a crop. Many of the recent 

 settlers in these areas have come almost to the 

 end of their resources, and have neither the 

 means nor the will to continue. Recent heavy 

 rains which have broken the drought — unhap- 

 pily too late to benefit the wheat crop — may 

 enable owners of live stock to secure enough 

 coarse grain and pasturage to carry their ani- 

 mals through the winter, but at the best the 

 loss will be very serious, and, despite the pre- 

 valent and infectious optimism of the west, 

 there will be a disposition to pull up stakes in 

 those parts of the region afforded by the crop 

 failure that are not assured moisture by irriga- 

 tion. 



While the failure this year has been due to 

 lack of rain at the critical part of the crop 

 season, much of last year's loss was the result 

 of high winds which, after the grain had been 

 put in under fair conditions, swept over the 

 bald prairie, dried out the surface of the soil, 

 and caused it to drift like the sand before a 

 desert storm. In both cases belts of trees 

 would have proved invaluable, for there is no 

 doubt at all that forest growth not only con- 

 serves moisture, but that it has much to do in 

 mo:!erating the strength and direction of the 

 winds. In a former geologic period the Cana- 

 dian West was densely clad with forests, for 

 the whole country is underlaid with coal that 

 could have been the result only of fores; 

 growth. It was a country also of great swamps 

 and watercourses, which provided sustenance 

 and shelters for the saurian monsters, the re- 

 mains of which are found in the Red Deer 

 Valloy and elsewhere, and that when r'^itored 

 and put on exhibition in natural history mus- 

 eums compel our wonder. 



The puny efforts of man cannot jeiinv the 

 tropical humidity of the Alberta and Saskatch- 

 ewan of that far-distant period, but forest 

 growth should be done. Vast sums have beea 

 spent on opening up the country and providing 

 it with railways and the facilities for growing 

 and marketing grain. That great investment 

 must clearly be followed up by forestry opera- 

 tions on a large scale. 



C'[ rTIXC A NEW KOAD IN BRITISH Cl)Ll"MBIA 



Xoif how carefully tlie debris is piled for burning 



in the centre. 



Temporary expedients to set upon their feet 

 settlers who have lost all through crop failures 

 are all very well in their way, but they will in 

 the end prove far more costly than a well-con- 

 sidered project extending over a long series of 

 years providing for the planting and care of 

 trees in the semi-arid regions. If this is not 

 done there may be a reproduction on this con- 

 tinent of the tragedy of southwestern Asia, 

 where the destruction of the forests has pro- 

 duced and perpetuated aridity over vast 

 stretches of a region that was wonderfully fer- 

 tile and provided with unfailing supplies of 

 moisture. In Shoistan at this moinoiit, "t!io 

 wind of a hundred days" blows over and and 



