INFORMATION FOR EMIGRANTS. 1 1- 



the corn crop, is a matter of great anxiety to our farmers in many sec- 

 tions ; and the winter-kiUing of clover in the eastern part of the State 

 last winter, not by heaving, but apparently frozen dead in the ground, 

 and appearing black and rotten in the spring, may be another proof of 

 climatic changes of great significance to the farmer and dairyman. 



The need of timber in Illinois as a shelter from winds is thus shown- 

 by Mr. O. B. Galusha, of that State : * 



In the year 1862, at the time when spring wheat and oats in the 

 northern portion of the State were just past their bloom, and a portion 

 of the grain in the milky state, we were visited by a storm from the 

 northwest, which swept 'over this portion of the State, prostrating nearly- 

 all the grain not sheltered by timber 



Mr. Galusha estimates the amount of grain destroyed by this storm^ 

 in Ilhnois at ^5,460,000, and adds: 



I think it may be safely estimated that an ave^^age of one twelfth paii: 

 of all of our crops of grain and large fruits are destroyed by violent winds.. 



In Nebraska the need for timber-planting as a shelter against the 

 severe storms of winter and the parching winds of summer, is greater 

 than in any of the States yet -named. Mr. D. C. Schofield has put the 

 necessity in very strong language in an address delivered at the Nebraska. 

 State Fair : f 



Our pine forests, from the lakes to the Atlantic, have been nearly 

 swept away, and the remaining pine lands will not continue more than 

 twenty years at the present ratio of consumption, which must increase 

 in a geometrical ratio as population and business increases. 



No great degree of prosperity and thrift can for a long time bless this 

 timberless country zvhen nearly all the timber and zvood material for alt 

 purposes are itnported at high rates. 



The futility of all attempts to supply the large and growing demand 

 by tree-planting is thus shown : % 



The timber question is the most important and all-absorbing one to 

 Nebraska farmers, as our young and prosperons State bears the reputa- 

 tion abroad of being the most destitute of timber of any other west of 

 the Missouri river. After approximate estimate, our State contains 

 about one acre of timber to every two hundred of prairie, and the pres- 

 ent waste and decrease is about five acres to every one acre planted and 

 cultivated. 



* Lecture at the Illinois Industrial University, iS6g. 



t See Fourth Annual Report State Board of Agriculture of Nebraska, page 406. 



X Same Report, page 445. 



