304 Division of Forestry. [Bull. 165 



Yet such soils after a few years of cultivation and good farm- 

 ing show a measurable quantity of soil water to a depth of 

 four or five feet. 



The soil loosened by plowing and cultivation holds the mois- 

 ture, which penetrates a little deeper ; the roots of plants follow 

 and open the way for more water to moisten to a greater depth. 

 The length of time required to insure any given depth of soil 

 moisture varies, of course, with the season and the character 

 and composition of the soil, but in every soil good farming is 

 the great factor in soil improvement. 



It is now hard to realize that men seemed to expect the 

 same results on the high buffalo grass lands as on the valley 

 soils. But the optimism of the settler was too often pure en- 

 thusiasm with not even a trace of cool judgment. Many times 

 a small hole was dug in the buffalo grass sod, a tree crowded 

 into it, and when it failed to survive such a severe change of 

 conditions the optimist turned pessimist and was sure that 

 Nature had placed the ban upon tree life and that it was "fly- 

 ing in the face of Providence" and "combating Nature's irrev- 

 ocable laws" to attempt to grow trees under such conditions. 

 Often the tree was killed by supposed kindness. Water was 

 poured into the small area of loosened soil, poured in frequently 

 and abundantly and at great cost of time and labor, and the 

 soil held the water, the tree stood in mud, with none of the life- 

 giving oxygen in the soil about its roots, and it drowned. 



A long drive in any of the western counties is certain to af- 

 ford an opportunity to note how hard a struggle some trees 

 can endure. Occasionally the long line of the prairie is broken 

 by the survivors of a hedge row or line of road trees set in the 

 days of the "first invasion" of the cattle country, in the later 

 eighties. Set in a narrow strip of breaking that marked the 

 line of the "claim," neglected for years, they have been pro- 



PLATE 5. The story of hard times that are gone. 



