RAINFALL AND HEIGHT OF WATER TABLE. 37 



of this country are treeless on account of lack of water, trees 

 planted on them and properly cared for may often grow 

 thriftily. But trees planted on our prairies always require 

 more care to make them do well than those planted in sections 

 of greater rainfall and we should not expect them to grow as 

 large as in the timbered sections without irrigation. 



RAINFALL AND HEIGHT OF WATER TABLE IN THE LAND. 



A few years ago it was argued by many friends of tree 

 planting that it was practicable by the planting of trees to in- 

 crease the rainfall and prevent evaporation in the great con- 

 tinental plain sufficiently to materially change the climate. 

 The large rainfall and the good crops produced for a number 

 of years in the drier portions of this area after considerable 

 planting had been done seemed to endorse all that the most 

 enthusiastic of tree planters claimed. But it must be very 

 evident to any careful student of the subject that such small 

 plantings as were made even had they been maintained could 

 scarcely have had any appreciable effect on the general cli- 

 mate of so vast a territory. It is very evident, too, from a 

 study of the annual rainfall that it has fluctuated greatly in 

 this section and that we have perhaps not recorded the least 

 or the greatest amount for any one year. 



There are some facts that seem to show plainly that there 

 must have been a time when the water level of our lakes was 

 much lower than it is now or than it was during the very dry 

 years from 189(i to 1895, when the rainfall in most cases pro- 

 duced no flow in the streams. There is a lake near Devils 

 Lake, N D., where in 1890 the old overland trail leading west 

 terminated abruptly on one side of the lake and was taken up 

 again in the continuation of its direction on the opposite side. 

 The trail is clear and distinct, showing it to have been of 

 comparatively recent use. It is a reasonable inference that 

 when this trail was in use this lake was dry. There are places 

 near the shores of Devils Lake where upright stumps are 

 standing submerged in water. The same phenomenon has 

 been noticed in other places. These are almost certain indica- 

 tions of a time or times when the beds of these lakes where the 

 stumps are, were out of water or very nearly so for a sufficient 

 length of time for the trees to grow. The climate must have 



