NOV 2 3 1914 



Division of Forestry 

 University of California 



PART I. 

 GROWING FOREST TREES IN WESTERN NEBRASKA. 



BY W. P. SNYDER. 



INTRODUCTION. 



For more than a quarter of a century farmers have been try 

 ing to grow trees in western Nebraska without surface or sub- 

 irrigation. That the result has been a failure from a purely com- 

 mercial point of view is evidenced by the lack of any groves that 

 furnish lumber, fence posts, or enough fuel to repay the cost of 

 production. 



A few trees, however, are being grown about the buildings 

 and in the "tree claim" plantations. These are sufficient in some 

 localities to break the monotony of the landscape and to add 

 much to the beauty of the country. These trees, dwarfed, 

 scrubby, and mostly less than twenty-five feet high, are chiefly 

 Box Elder, tho there are some Green Ash. Oottonwood, White 

 Elm, Black Locust, Honey Locust, Mulberry, and Catalpa. 



TREE CLAIM ACT. The groves were planted because of the 

 "Tree Claim Act" passed by Congress in 1873, but repealed in 

 1891. Under this law the title to a quarter-section of land could 

 be secured by a qualified homesteader without residence on the 

 land, by planting and cultivating for eight years ten acres of 

 trees, 675 to the acre, on the quarter-section. This was an effort 

 on the part of the Federal government to forest portions of the 

 prairie land. On some "claims" there were ten ncres of rather 

 thrifty trees from four to ten feet high when "proof" was made, 



* When this experiment was planned and during the first few years of 

 its progress the United States Forest Service cooperated with the Sub- 

 station, but later the Forest Service severed its connection. The Sub- 

 station has received very valuable assistance from the Department of 

 Forestry of the University of Nebraska, represented by Professor F. G. 

 Miller, Professor Frank J. Phillips, Professor O. L. Sponsler, and Pro- 

 fessor W. J. Duppert. 



Mr. L. L. Zook, of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, took the pho- 

 tographs in 1912. 



Professor W. J. Morrill, who is now in charge of Forestry in the Uni- 

 versity, has carefully edited the Forestry portion of this bulletin. 



BUL. 137, AGE. EXP. STATION OF NEBR. VOL. XXV, ART. VII. 



