Tree Planting in Southern Alberta* 



By A. Mitchell. 



Of all the prairie provinces, Alberta has 

 the greatest variety of climate; and it is 

 well worth the while of anyone who con- 

 templates planting to endeavor to get a 

 thorough understanding of the particular 

 f-et of conditions which will apply to his 

 locality. The thorough preparation of the 

 land previous to planting is necessary every- 

 ^vhere, as in the other prairie provinces, and 

 so, too, is the after cultivation; only, in 

 southei-n Alberta, witii a somewhat lesser 

 rainfall and more dry winds, there is a 

 greater need to conserve the moisture, and 

 consequently the value of cultivation at the 

 right time is more apparent. The kinds of 

 trees suitable vary in the several districts, 

 and when a man is planting it will pay him 

 well to plant only a\ liat is likely to suc- 

 ceed. 



The 'Chinooks.' 



The warm Chinook winds coming over the 

 snountains from British Columbia are the 

 cause of many a pleasant gap amid the 

 rigors of winter, and tdey have been blamed 

 for a great deal of t vvc killing they never 

 were guilty of. The I rouble usually arises 

 ifrom faulty cultivation. The influence of 

 the Chinooks is usually considered to ex- 

 tend from the boundary liue to a distance of 

 about fifty miles uorlii of Calgary. North 

 of this, the winters are steady and differ 

 little, if at all, from tho^e of the other 

 prairie provinces. 



The rainfall in the Chinook country is, as 

 a rule, a good deal less than it is in the 

 iiorth, and ranges from about thirteen and 

 a half to nearly eighteen inches. North 

 of the Chinook belt the jjrecipitation runs 

 from eighteen inches up to as high as 

 twenty-seven inches in some years, and, as a 

 great part of the country is bush, a set of 

 conditions prevails which differs very nuich 

 from that met M'ith in the south. 



The Chinooks have been blamed for doing 

 damage to trees in this part of the country 

 by inducing an untimely flow of sap in the 

 late winter or early spring, which, when fol- 

 lowed by a sudden drop of the temperature 

 immediately afterwards, ends in disaster to 

 tiie trees. This may be true, but the writer 

 has never seen it. What looks like it, and is 

 often mistaken for it, is the fact that some- 

 times the buds swell toward spring, but ad- 

 vance no further, and the branches bear- 

 ing them die, 1 ecause there was not, at the 

 roots of the tree, moisture enough to enable 

 them to supply what Avas necestary to keep 

 rp the growth. It is only a question of 



moisture, and where trees are irrigated pro- 

 perly or cultivated thoroughly, there is never 

 any trouble from this source, and in the 

 Chinook country, as in all the rest of the 

 prairie, it will be found that the man who 

 cultivates bes-t in the summer is the one 

 whose trees best survive the winter. This 

 has been proved over and over again. 



The 'Higher District.' 



But the Chinook is not the only thing 

 that influences the climate of southern Al- 

 l)erta. Another feature bears very ma- 

 terially on this subject, especially in relation 

 to tree-growing, and that is the rapid slope 

 up^vard as you approach the mountains. 

 I'^'rom Medicine Hat, at a height of about 

 2,171 feet above sea level, to Calgary (only 

 about 150 miles west) there is a rii-e of 

 1,2.57 ft., and from Macleod westward the 

 rife is even more rapid, for the altitude of 

 that tow'n is about 3,208 feet, while Pincher 

 Creek (only thirty miles further west) is 

 some 600 feet higher. Conditions like these 

 cannot fail to have an influence on the cli- 

 mate, and not infrequently these higher re- 

 gions are visited by a touch of frost s^everal 

 weeks earlier than the country further east. 



This ' higher district ' of the province may 

 lie defined as lying frou\ the boundary line 

 north to about Olds, a distance of some 200 

 miles; and includes all the country west and 

 f-outh of Spring Coulee, Pincher Creek dis- 

 trict, west and south of the Piegan reserve, 

 the Porcupine Hills, and west of a line from 

 Staveley on the Calgary-Macleod line, run- 

 ning NNE, to Namaka on the main line 

 of the C.P.R. ; thence we^t of a line between 

 ranges twenty-three and twenty-four till the 

 bush country is reached. 



All the country included in this area may 

 be classed as the 'high country' from an 

 arboricultural point of view, and it will be 

 found that trees which do quite well further 

 east do not always succeed here. 



The sudden rise from the Pacific, as is 

 well known, causes the moisture-laden breezes 

 from the ocean to lose their moisture almost 

 entirely as they come over the mountains; 

 so that the western slope is very wet, while 

 east of the Rockies the rainfall is very small. 

 Not all of the rain-clouds are deposited on 

 the v.estern slope, however, for frequently 

 during the summer the skirt of a cloud may 

 be seen coming over the summit to fall in 

 vain on the higher prairie and the foot- 

 hills, which are in this way usually blessed 

 \vith a considerably better rainfall tham the 

 flat country further east. (The prairie 



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