278 NEED OF TIMBER-BELTS FOE FARM-PROTECTION. 



is present or absent. In illustrating this point, Mr. O. B. Galusba, of 

 Illinois, has presented some instructive examples:^ 



In the year 1862, at the time when spring-wheat and oats, in the northern portion of 

 the State, were just past their bloom, and a portion of the grains in the milky state, 

 ■we were visited by a storm from the northwest, which swept over this portion of the 

 State, prostrating nearly all the grain not sheltered by timber. * * * In one local- 

 ity a single line of broad and tall willows, closely planted, proved a suflQcient check to 

 the wind, so that a field of wheat adjoining it on the east stood erect and was harvested 

 with a machine, while in exposed situations the shrunken grain, if saved at all, was 

 often gathered by the slow and tedious process of hooking it up with scythes. Many 

 thousand acres were left to dry and were burned upon the ground, which two or three 

 weeks before had promised abundant crops. The extra expense of gathering the grain 

 of that harvest could not have been less than 50 cents per acre on the whole amount 

 harvested. I traveled quite extensively over this portion of the State before and soon 

 after the harvest of that year, and am convinced that one-half the value of the wheat 

 and oats in the territory passed over by that storm was destroyed by it. There were 

 sown in that year, as per census reports, in the 30 counties lying north of the Burling- 

 ton, Peoria and Logansport Railroad, about 1,200,000 acres of wheat, and at least one- 

 fourth as many of oats. Allowing one-tenth of these crops to have been protected by 

 timber, we find the loss to have bten equal to 540,000 acres of wheat and 130,000 acres 

 of oats. Computing the wheat at 15 bushels per acre and the value at 50 cents per 

 bushel, the oats at 30 bushels per acre and price 20 cents per bushel, we have the sum 

 of $4,860,000 as the cash value of property in these two crops alone, which was destroyed 

 in a single storm in an area of a little more than one-third of our State. Allowing 

 150,000 acres to have been burned, or not harvested, and adding to the amount of loss 

 per acre of the remainder of the nine-tenths (lodged grain), equal to $600,000, it swells 

 the amount to the enormous sum of $5,460,000. Let us see how much it would cost to 

 plant and cultivate screens to prevent such losses. A double row of white or golden 

 willows, with trees in the second row set opposite the spaces in the first, planted upon 

 the west side of every 80-acre lot, would doubtless prove sufBcient, as they would, at the 

 age of 12 years, form a dense wall of foliage about 40 feet high, and would, of course, 

 increase in size for many years thereafter. These would cost, per mile of screen, about 

 as follows : Average value of two acres of land, at $40 per acre, $S0 ; preparation of the 

 soil and planting with strong cuttings, $10 ; cultivating the first two years, $20; mak- 

 ing a total cost, with purchase-money of the land, $110. After two years no care will 

 be needed, save a mulch of refuse straw, to be renewed once in two or three years, the 

 cost of which will be more than repaid in the partial protection which the trees will 

 render previous to the twelfth year. 



There are in the 30 counties referred to about 16,625 sections of prairie-land. This 

 will renuire 66,.500 miles of screen if planted as above proposed, making the entire cost 

 $7,315,000. Thus we see, that without estimating the immense damage done to fruit 

 and other crops, the wheat and oats destroyed in that storm would, if saved, have 

 paid about three-fourths the entire expense of growing timber-belts throughout that 

 entire territory. 



I think it may be safely estimated, that an average of one-twelfth part of all our 

 crops of grain and large fruits are destroyed by violent winds, which such a system of 

 protection, or its equivalent in groves, would so far check as to prevent the destruction. 

 If this is true, such protection would save to the husbandman and orchardist its entire 

 cost every two or at most three years. Such protection, too, would, by causing the 

 snow to remain spread evenly over the surface, as before hinted, enable the fjruier to 

 raise winter-wheat in localities where it is now impossible to do so. If we add to the 

 benefits of the culture already considered, those far-reaching and incalculably valuable 

 climatic influences which would flow therefrom, we must all admit the necessity of 

 commencing this great enterprise at once, and prosecuting it with vigor. 



I do not introduce this plan of planting straight belts of trees, a quarter of a milo 

 apart, because it is the most desirable plan which can be adopted, for no man of taste 

 would regard it as such. The eye would soon tire of such stiffness and raonotufcy in 

 the landscape. Tree-planting may be so planned and conducted as to give beauty to 

 the landscape, and at the same time secure nearly all the combined benefits of pro- 

 tection to crops, timber for uses in the mechanic arts, and those climatic influences 

 which we all regard as so important. Of course no rules can be given for t>uch tree- 

 planting. Generally where the surface is somewhat undulating (for we have no hills), 

 the planting should be done mainly upon the higher portions of the farms, and along 

 the w ater-rourses. Where the surface is level, belts may be planted upon the north 

 and west of the farms, with groves upon the least valuable portions. These last would 

 intercept the straight lines and give diversity. But if each prairie-farmer were to 



' Lecture at the Illinois Industrial University in 1869, published in the second Report 

 of its trustees, p. 356. 



