Planting along Railroads. 135 



climate favor, the evergreens, and especially the white and red ce- 

 dars, the Scotch pine and the Norway or black spruce are most ef- 

 fectual. They should be started in nurseries m all cases, as ever- 

 greens require more care at first. 



549. When planted or set, the rows must be thoroughly culti- 

 vated by stin'ing the ground with a cultivator or by hand-hoeing 

 until the trees appear to need it no longer. For the first and second 

 years a double cultivator may be used, if care is taken to protect 

 the row between with cloths under the forward part. If bent down, 

 the trees will straighten up, and if not broken, or the bark torn, they 

 will not be injured. Plantations thus set will need thinning as they 

 become well started, and will require protection against cattle and 

 against fires. 



550. For the prevention of injury from prairie fires, lines of fresh 

 earth should be formed outside near the trees, and at a distance 

 of one or two hundred feet parallel with them, by plowing two or 

 three furrows, and burning off' the space between in a still time, 

 and as early in the fall as fire can be made to spread. The grass 

 between the belts, along the track, should in this manner be also 

 cleared off" every fall, and by these precautions the chances of acci- 

 dent from fire would be almost wholly removed. 



551. In the North-western States, the planting time lasts about 

 a month, and ends about the middle or twentieth of May. It be- 

 gins again in October, from the tenth to the fifteenth, and lasts till 

 freezing weather. Farther south, the spring planting begins earlier, 

 and the fall planting later, and both will vary in diiferent years. 



552. Much success has attended the planting of trees along the 

 sides of railroad cuts, to prevent the drifting of snows in the winter 

 in lines crossing the steppes of Russia. The first of these experi- 

 ments was begun in the spring of 1876, near Nikitooka, on the 

 Kursk-Kharkoff'-Azov Eailroad, about 1,000 feet above the sea, in a 

 region that was treeless, and utterly unpromising. It was in fact 

 selected with the view of securing a strong argument in favor of 

 the measure, in case the trees could be made a success. Towards . 

 the end of March, a strip of land was broken up, and afterwards 

 sub-soiled and harrowed. On the 10th of April, the season being 

 well advanced, over 100,000 trees and shrubs were set from nurse- 

 ries, in 7 rows, about 6 feet apart, and 6 feet between trees in each 

 row, the nearest one being 84 feet from the track. The kinds set 



