1 904 FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 77 



is introducing new methods and machin- during their first year on the western 



ery and seeds of new plants among the homestead are palaces compared with 



fanners, and is showing them how to the filthy hovels occupied by the farmers 



get the best results from their labor; but of Egypt. There is no class in Europe 



with all these improvements and advan- so destitute of comforts and all that goes 



tages the poorest farmer in the United to make homes and happiness. The 



States is as comfortable and as well off poorest Italians are better housed and 



as the richest of the fellaheens. The sod fed and clothed than these dark-skinned 



huts in which the prairie pioneers lived agriculturalists of the Nile. 



PLANTED PINE IN NEBRASKA. 



A REPORT SHOWING THE SUCCESS OF A PLANTATION 

 STARTED THIRTEEN YEARS AGO IN THE SAND HILLS. 



BY 



CHARLES A. SCOTT, 



BUREAU OF FORESTRY. 



[The data obtained from this examination are of peculiar interest in their bearing upon the 

 afforestation of the Nebraska Sand Hill region, at which a considerable beginning has been 



made, under the direction of Mr. Scott, within the past two years. The unprepossessing Jack 



Pine, so long despised by the lumbermen of the Lake States, evidently has a right to considera- 

 tion's the most useful tree in the reclamation of these barren wastes. EDITOR.] 



A PLANTATION of Pines, com- Pines were forest seedlings. Just 50 



monly called the Holt Count}' per cent, of these seedlings died before 



Plantation, covers .52 of an acre on the October 15 of their first year, 



ranch of Bruner Brothers, four miles Since planting, the trees have received 



west of Swan Post-office, Holt county, no cultivation whatever, but they have 



Nebraska. been carefully protected from fire and 



It is rectangular in form, measuring stock, and the response of the little con- 



70 by 192 feet, and is located in sand ifers to this care is demonstrated in the 



hills bordering a dry valley and so dis- fact that fully 90 per cent of the balance 



posed as to include within the area all of these seedlings grew, 



of the exposures and conditions com- The absolute altitude of this location 



mon and characteristic in the sand-hill is 2,200 feet. The greatest extent of 



country. the plantation is from northwest to 



The trees in this plantationwere set out southeast. The west corner is the 



in the spring of 1891 as three-year-old highest point, and from thence the slope 



seedlings, averaging about 8 inches in is to the northeast, east, and southeast, 



height. These seedlings were furnished In proceeding from the northwest end 



by the (then) Division of Forestry, and to the southeast end, the lowest point is 



planted by the owners of the land ac- encountered at one-quarter the distance 



cording to the provisions of a planting across. The bottom of this hollow is 



plan prepared by the Division. Fur- fully 20 feet lower than the west corner, 



rows were turned 2 feet apart and the and in it no trees appear on an area of 



trees were planted 2 feet apart in the about 300 square feet, probably on ac- 



furrows. Every alternate furrow was count of the seedlings being drowned 



planted with Jack Pine (Pi mis divari- by the water which collects in this 



cata), and in the intervening furrows pocket during heavy rains, 



were planted Scotch, Austrian, Norway, The largest trees are found between 



and Western Yellow Pine. The Jack the west corner and the open area in the 



