Windbreaks 63 



should be. For California, Wickson recommends species 

 of eucalyptus, pepper or schinus, Monterey cypress, 

 Monterey pine, osage orange, locust, and maples. "Quite 

 a number of the larger-growing deciduous fruit trees," he 

 continues, "are used to some extent along the exterior 

 lines of orchards for the protection of the inclosure. The 

 fig, the walnut, the chestnut, seedling almonds, and apricots 

 are especially commended for such use." 



In Florida it is a common practice to leave strips of the 

 original forest to serve as shelter-belts. If this forest is 

 hammock land, and therefore well clothed underneath, 

 the protection of a belt 2 to 4 rods wide will b most 

 complete. The cabbage palmetto is often allowed to stand 

 promiscuously through the orange plantation, partly to 

 serve as a protection from winds, partly for shade and 

 ornament. In exposed places, orange groves are sometimes 

 protected by very tall open fences. 



The break should not be planted so close to the rows 

 of fruit as to deprive them of light, food and moisture. It 

 should never be dense enough to force the buds on fruit 

 trees in those localities subject to late spring frosts, as it 

 may sometimes do when it faces the south and acts like 

 a southern exposure for the plantation. Payne makes the 

 following observation (Colo. Exp. Sta.) on windbreaks 

 in a given dry-land orchard: "Trees used for windbreaks 

 for orchards under dry-farming conditions are expensive 

 unless the trees of the windbreak group are planted far 

 enough from the fruit trees so that the roots of the wind- 

 break group will not compete with the fruit trees for 

 moisture. The root-development of the Russian mulberry 

 and black locust found at the Plains Substation indicate 

 that the windbreak group should be planted 100 feet 

 from the fruit trees." 



