Planting Trees on Kansas Prairies 



I. T. BODE, B. S. F. 

 Nurseryman, Fort Hays Branch Experiment Station. 



Kansas always has been and always will be essentially a prairie 

 state. But every year brings more convincing proof that her 

 plains need not always remain treeless. Each planting season 

 sees new effort put forth to beautify the Western Kansas homes 

 and divest the plains of their traditional bleakness. 



The state possesses a wide fange of climatological conditions 

 and physiographic features. In passing from east to west one 

 notes a gradation from the wooded stream banks and timber 

 belts of the eastern sections to the wide flat plains of the extreme 

 west and southwest, where a tree becomes a novelty. The climatic 

 conditions change from those of the average Mississippi Valley 

 state to those of the plains regions. The rainfall drops from an 

 average of 35 to 37 inches to an average of about 16 inches. The 

 winds rise gradually until in the western section velocities of 20 

 miles per hour are very common and those of 35 to 40 miles are 

 frequent. The lack of protective belts and the dry prairie soils 

 increase their drying effects and enable them to carry the soils 

 more and more, until in the western parts of the state soil blow- 

 ing becomes a serious problem. The precipitation is likely to 

 come more or less spasmodically, being heavy during the winter 

 and spring of the year and little or none during the summer 

 months. Hail is frequent and often does a great damage by 

 defoliating and even barking old as well as young trees. Winter- 

 killing becomes important, not because of the low temperatures, 

 but because of the late fall and early spring warm spells. These 

 sometimes occur as late as December and as early as February. 

 Often sap will begin to rise. Nearly always such warm spells are 

 followed by cold waves and freezing weather. Winterkilling is 

 the usual result. Such conditions increase the vicissitudes and 

 limit the scope of the tree planter's work. They make hardy 

 species and intensive methods of moisture conservation impera- 

 tive. 



However, to those who really know the state it is not as wild and 

 barren as popular opinion would have it, and there are evidences 

 of earlier days which hold forth promise of a certain amount of 

 success in tree planting for the future. It is probable that the 

 Kansas plains were not always as destitute of trees as they are at 

 present. For example, on the Fort Hays Experiment Station, 

 which in the early days was the Fort Hays Military Reservation, 

 a belt of heavy timber borders Big Creek as far as the reserva- 

 tion extended. Beyond these limits the timber breaks off suddenly 



