182 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. 



Previous to the year 1821 the French district Provence 

 was a fertile and well-watered region. In 1822 the olive 

 trees which were largely cultivated there were injured by 

 frost, and 'the inhabitants began to cut them up, root and 

 branch. This, in effect, was like clearing off a forest, and in 

 consequence the streams dried up, and the productiveness of 

 the country was seriously diminished. The French have 

 discovered that more can be produced with the land two- 

 thirds cultivated and one-third covered with forest, than if 

 all is cultivated. 



" It is claimed that the rain-belt in Kansas and Nebraska is 

 moving westward. This is doubtless owing to the breaking 

 up of the sod by plowing ; the cultivation of the vigorous 

 growing crops, especially the corn crop ; the planting of 

 trees, and irrigation. The secretary of the Board of Agri- 

 culture of Kansas claims that plowing alone tends to retard 

 drainage and gives the growing crops a chance to arrest and 

 throw off again into the atmosphere more of the rain-fall. 

 He claims also that even if the rain-fall is no greater in the 

 aggregate, yet during the growing season, June, July and 

 August, it comes more fi"eqUently and more gently than 

 formerly, and this also gives vegetation a better chance for 

 moisture than when there were drenching storms and floods 

 at longer intervals. 



In Kansas and Nebraska there are about 20,000,000 acres 

 under cultivation, nearly half that area in corn. 



From the Agricultural Report of the State of Nebraska 

 we learn that there were planted last year (1885), 248,496 

 forest trees, and there are now growing in that State 43,000,- 

 000 forest trees, where a few years ago not a tree was to be 

 seen. 



The Governor of Kansas is authority for the statement 

 that in that once treeless State there are now more than 

 20,000,000 fruit trees, and upwards of 200,000 acres of for- 

 est trees planted by the inhabitants. 



In Colorado, the State engineer estimates the area irri- 

 gated at over 1,000,000 acres. 



The vigorous corn and wheat, and the fruit and forest 

 trees are better evaporators of the moisture from the earth, 

 as well as better condensers of the moisture in the air, than 



