20 



FORESTATION, SAND HILLS NEBKASKA AND KANSAS. 



BEGINNINGS OF FOREST PLANTING IN THE SAND-HILL REGION. 



It is thought that the first suggestion that the Federal Govern- 

 ment should plant forests in the sand hills of Nebraska came from 

 Dr. Charles E. Bessey, of the University of Nebraska, about 1890. 

 Before this time settlers had made plantings in the sand hills, as 

 throughout Nebraska and the other Middle Western States, under the 

 timber-culture act (1878-1891). This planting did little to justify 

 the purpose of the act, which was to stimulate the cultivation of tim- 

 ber in the treeless region, and almost without exception the planta- 

 tions of hardwood trees failed because of drought, light soil, and lack 

 of protection from cattle. About the only successful plantations 

 were those made with cottonwood in the low, moist swales where 

 farmsteads were established. Some of these plantations have attained 

 good size and the trees have been of inestimable benefit in protecting 

 the ranch buildings. In many cases these groves of cottonwood have 

 furnished the only shelter for herds of cattle in the most severe 

 winters. 



In 1891 the Federal Division of Forestry adopted Dr. Bessey 7 s 

 suggestion and established a small plantation of jack and Norway 

 pines on the ranch of the Bruner brothers, in Holt County, 4 miles 

 west of Swan, Nebr., with trees collected in the woods of Wisconsin. 

 Other species used to a limited extent were Scotch, Austrian, and 

 western yellow pines, Douglas fir, and arbor vitse. The yellow pine 

 was obtained from a commercial nursery. These species were mostly 

 used in such small numbers as to make no showing, and the only 

 species that are at present worth considering in the plantation are 

 the jack, western yellow, and Scotch pines. Of all the others less 

 than 3 per cent survive. 



Most of the trees used in this plantation were about 3 years old and 

 8 inches in height. Reports made on the plantation in 1896 and 1903, 

 which show the survival and condition of the trees of the three suc- 

 cessful species, are summarized in Tables 5 and 6. 



TABLE 5. Number of trees planted on Bruner brothers' ranch, in Holt County, Nebr., and 



number that survived. ! 



1 From paper by Charles A. Scott, Nebraska Forestry and Park Association, January, 1904. 



2 A few trees were probably overlooked, since later counts show a larger number alive. 



