24 MISC. PUBLICATION 290, U. S. 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-McXary 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 40 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 marketing and 

 utilization of farm timber. 



In 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 hi 

 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- 

 grams are designed to extend windbreak and farm-woodland 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 

 Xorth 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 propaga- 

 tion of seedlings within the region and the latitudinal zone in which 

 the trees were planted. 



Nurseries were leased to provide the necessary seedlings. Up to 

 July 1, 1939, 130,008.965 trees were planted on the project, represent- 

 ing approximately 10,954 miles of shelterbelt strips, in addition to 

 approximately 6,500 acres of tree groves planted around farmsteads. 



