94 MISC. PUBLICATION 290, U. 8S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
forestry departments or comparable agencies for the planting of 
windbreaks, shelterbelts, and farm woodlands. 
Another form of assistance offered by the Government under the 
Clarke-McNary law is aid to farm woodland owners in the manage- 
ment and care of their timber. Approximately 185,500,000 acres of 
commercial forest land, or about one-third of the privately owned 
commercial forest area of the country, is in farm woodlands. As a 
source of cash income to the farmers of the United States, forest 
products sold from the farm rank tenth among the 50 leading farm 
crops. In this project, the Department of Agriculture, through its 
Extension Service and the Forest Service, cooperates with. farmers 
in 88 States and Puerto Rico. The work is focused on the more effi- 
cient management of farm woodlands, the reforestation of those 
farm lands not now suitable for agricultural crops, and the market- 
ing and utilization of farm timber. 
Tn connection with this program, a number of small timbered tracts 
throughout the country are being improved as demonstration areas 
to stimulate the interest of timberland owners in practical forestry 
methods, Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees are being used in 
carrying out this work on both farm woodlands and other privately 
owned timberlands. Each demonstration is a cooperative venture 
in which the owner of the land, the C. C. C., the Extension Service, 
the State forest service, and the United States Forest Service par- 
ticipate. These demonstrations show practical measures of control- 
ling soil erosion, reducing flood dangers, and increasing forest and 
woodland values through proper woods practices. They also aid 
in promoting more intensive protection from fire. 
PRAIRIE STATES FORESTRY PROJECT 
The Forest Service is vitally concerned with the use of trees in 
the prairie-plains States as an important means of crop protection, 
control of wind and water erosion, and a definite factor in making 
that area a better place in which to live and work. Planting pro- 
erams are designed to extend windbreak, shelterbelt, and farm-wood- 
land benefits into the territory between the forested States along the 
Mississippi and the treeless plains to the west. 
Activities up to date have proved the value of such work. Out- 
standing success has been attained in the planting programs under 
the Prairie States forestry project since the spring of 1935. Work 
has been done in an area extending from the northern boundary of 
North Dakota south into the Panhandle of Texas, roughly paralleling 
the 100th meridian. 
Trees selected for planting were for the most part the native 
species of the western region which have become adjusted to the 
climate and soils through | many generations. In the case of every 
species except exotics, special stress was laid on the collection of 
seed and propagation of seedlings within the region and the lati- 
tudinal zone in which the trees were planted. 
Nurseries were leased to provide the necessary seedlings. Up to 
July 1, 1938, 83,502,254 trees were planted on the project, “yepresent- 
ing approximately 7,000 miles of shelterbelt strips, in addition to 
approximately 6,500 acres of tree groves planted around farmsteads. 
