TREE PLANTING IN NEBRASKA 

 Professor W. J. Duppert. 



The early settlers of Nebraska were planters of trees. They 

 came from wooded sections of the East and from Europe ; in 

 order to feel at home they planted trees on the fertile but tree- 

 less plains. Windbreaks, woodlots and ornamental trees now 

 found in this state owe their origin largely to the older genera- 

 tion. Planting, as a general policy, continued for many years, 

 but finally the land came to possess such value .that the owners 

 felt that they could no longer afford to devote agricultural land 

 to timber crops. This feeling caused a decline of interest in 

 planting and resulted in the destruction of much of the native 

 timber on lands that should have remained permanently forested. 

 The lack of interest in tree planting and in the conservation of 

 the supply of native timber is generally confined to the younger 

 generation, the sons of the hardy pioneers, and can be said to 

 have started in the early nineties. 



Other causes for this indifference to tree planting are the 

 failures due to the selection of poor species, lack of care after 

 planting, destruction by fire and stock, and the selection of spe- 

 cies not adapted to the climate or site they were to occupy. These 

 failures served as excuses for the cutting of the native timber 

 and for the decline of tree planting. During the extremely dry 

 years in the early nineties many of the settlers were obliged to 

 cut the trees on the school sections together with the small quan- 

 tities growing on farms which had been acquired under the "Tree 

 Culture Act." Thus sonic settlers were enabled to tide over 

 the lean years and to remain on their homesteads ; in this way 

 trees were an important factor in the development of the state. 

 It would seem that people who had been benefited so directly 

 by the timber which they secured in time of great need would 



