370 DRY LAND FARMING 



windbreak will thus make two years' growth before 

 the fruits planted contiguous to it will enter the first win- 

 ter after planting. This would mean, therefore, that the 

 homesteader may be ready to plant such fruits as need 

 protection in exposed situations, in, say, two years from 

 the time of breaking the sod where the windbreak is 

 to be planted. 



Trees suitable for dry areas. The trees that may be 

 grown in dry areas may be divided into the three classes : 

 (1) for windbreaks; (2) for groves, and (3) for fence 

 posts. It should be remembered that suitability for any 

 of these uses will vary with the conditions, insomuch that 

 what is best suited to one locality may be quite unsuited 

 to another. 



For windbreaks, all things considered, the common 

 white or gray willow will best serve the purpose when a 

 windbreak is to be grown, and especially in northern 

 areas. It is hardy, of quick growth, and the branches will 

 grow very closely together. Moreover, although it has 

 highest adaptation for moist conditions and humid cli- 

 mates, it will grow reasonably well on the bench lands 

 of dry areas. It would seem correct to say that no other 

 tree will furnish protection within so short a time. Wind- 

 breaks may also be made by growing box-elder trees in 

 a way that will cause them to branch from the ground 

 upward, as has been so well exemplified by Mr. Angus 

 Mackay in growing them thus at the experiment station 

 at Indian Head, Sask. In some areas it is practicable to 

 grow evergreen windbreaks by the judicious planting of 

 and caring for the trees. Black Hills spruce of far west- 

 ern South Dakota, the jack pine and the bull pine (pinus 

 ponderosa) all these are now being grown under nur- 

 sery conditions. 



For groves, the green ash, the elm, the oak in more 

 than one of its varieties, the box-elder, the catalpa, the 

 black walnut, the black locust, the silverleaf poplar and 



