FORESTS IN THE SAND HILLS 



BY FRED R. JOHNSON 



U. S. FOKEST SERVICE, DENVER, COLORADO 



THE weary traveler passing through the uninteresting 

 sandhill region in western Nebraska on the Billings 

 Branch of the Burlington Railroad is astonished 

 after hours of gazing at bare sandhills, occasional sod 

 ranch houses, and groups of cattle, to see before him 

 green hills covered with evergreen trees. There is a rush 

 to the south side of the train, a series of questions, and 

 then a sign looms in view : 



"Bessey Nursery, 

 Nebraska National Forest." 



Are those trees natural growth ; were they planted ; 

 what kind are they ; why should we have a forest in these 

 desolate hills, etc? For years a greater part of western 

 Nebraska was known as the Great American Desert. A 

 few ranchers occupied the river valleys and lower lying 

 land close to lakes where they could cut enough hay to 

 winter their cattle, which grazed in the adjacent hills. 

 Other parts of the hills were used by herds of long 

 horned cattle that were trailed across country from 

 Texas and then sold in the fall at Missouri River markets. 

 But this business proved unprofitable and twenty years 

 ago there was very little use of the sandhills. 



About that time a movement, led by Dr. Charles E. 

 Bessey, Dean of the Botany Department of the Univer- 



sity of Nebraska, was started to utilize a portion of these 

 sandhills for the purpose of raising timber for the prairie 

 states. This was shown to be practicable from the growtl 

 made by a plantation of jack, Scotch and yellow pina 

 established in 1891 on Bruner Brothers' ranch in Hot 

 County, Nebraska, by the Federal Division of Forestry. 

 It was felt that the production of timber and the grazing 

 of cattle might be carried on together, as in much of 

 the mountain country, and the land would thus be put to 

 a higher use. Nebraska has almost as small a forest area 

 as any state in the Union and large quantities of material 

 are needed anually for use on ranches and on the excel- 

 lent farms in the eastern part of the state. 



Accordingly, in 1902, after an examination of the land 

 in this region by forest experts, an area of 206,000 acres 

 was set aside by Presidential Proclamation 0.4 of 1 per 

 cent of the total area of the state, reserved for raising 

 timber. 



In 1903 the first plantation was established with jack 

 pine seedlings pulled from the forests of Minnesota. 

 These trees now range from 20 to 25 feet in height and 

 forest conditions prevail, the grass having been shaded 

 out and replaced by a litter of pine needles, and the lower 

 limbs of the trees are falling off. A comparison with the 

 jack pine plantations in Holt County, previously men- 



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VIEW FROM LOOKOUT TOWER, NEBRASKA FOREST 



Thii hows the system of fire breaks, the nature of the country, and yellow pine planted in 19U in the foreground, with older planting in the distance. 



The plantations arc divided into units of about 160 acres each. 



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