PLANTING TREES ON KANSAS PRAIRIES 29 



and is then noticeable only in irregular blocks along the stream. 

 Evidence of single specimens or small groups of very old mature 

 timber along other creek bottoms and along draws throughout the 

 Western section seem to point further to a day when these lower 

 areas and stream banks all may have been more extensively 

 wooded. Many instances are found, too, where tree growth 

 breaks off in a sharp line just beyond some stream or other natur- 

 al barrier. It is not at all improbable that these are the results of 

 destruction by fire. The Indian of the early days fired the prairies 

 to destroy pasture and game against the approach of his unfriendly 

 neighbors, and in so doing he was not scrupulous about encroach- 

 ing upon any timber land which might have existed. The great 

 prairie fires which have become more or less history, regard- 

 less of their origin, undoubtedly decreased any existing timber 

 areas. Then, too, the early settler demanded fuel and structural 

 timber. Just how far-reaching such destruction was is difficult 

 to say in view of the remaining remnants of the old sod house and 

 of the reports of the great distances to which lumber was carried 

 overland. However, it is reasonably safe to suppose that inroads 

 were made on any native timber then standing. 



Nevertheless, trees were then, as now, "conspicuous by. their 

 absence" in Western Kansas, and die second generation of set- 

 tlers especially, who were not compelled to spend every spare 

 minute to win a bare existence from the soil began to demand 

 trees of some kind. The earliest efforts at tree culture were 

 made in the form of the old ''tree claim." Spotted all through 

 the western sections of Kansas may be found remnants of these 

 plantings in varying stages of preservation. They do not ex- 

 hibit magnificent trees, but they give promise of better results 

 with more intensive methods. In nearly every case the plantings 

 have become scraggly and deteriorated, mostly because of neglect 

 and very often because of poor varieties. Land was the ob- 

 ject of the plantings, not trees. As a result they were set and 

 left to their own salvation in the battle against the hardships of 

 the soil and the prairie sod. 



The present generation, however, are no longer land seekers ; 

 they have become land-owners and home-builders. Now comes 

 a new demand for trees to make Kansas homes more livable. 

 Through this second demand or awakening has come more syste- 

 matic effort, and gradually the people are beginning to realize 

 that tree planting is not an impossibility, that it is a necessity, 

 that it will pay in some form or other sooner or later. It was 

 to further these efforts that a State Forestry Department was 

 established with a State Forester at its head. Two state nurseries 

 are now maintained, one in the Eastern and one in the Western 

 section of the state. The stock is distributed to the people of 

 Kansas at the cost of production. Kansas has again been brought 



