FORESTRY AND PERMANENT PROSPERITY / 



this work some 20 carefully chosen species of trees have been used. 

 Approximately 131,450,000 trees have been planted. 



Protective tree planting — even though well planned — will not, of 

 course, stop drought, but it will lessen its local adverse effects. It 

 may not increase local rainfall, but it will help conserve what does fall. 

 It will not prevent the bitter winds of winter or the hot, drying ones 

 of summer, but locally it will reduce their surface velocities and the 

 damage they do. In all this, it will aid in preserving soil moisture and 

 in surface water conservation. It will also provide recreational areas, 

 form havens and refuges for upland game and other wildlife, and add 

 variety and beauty to the landscape. More than this, it will break 

 the force of the prevailing winds and give protection to farm cropland, 

 strongly reducing the erosive effect of the winds. Protective tree 

 planting will, in short, make a Plains area of some 70,000,000 acres, 

 including more than 185,000 established farm units, a better place in 

 which to live. 



Public sentiment in the Plains area is solidly behind the tree- 

 planting program of the Prairie States forestry project. Trees 

 planted in 1935 have reached heights of more than 30 feet, and cotton- 

 wood fence posts of 7 inches diameter have been cut from a shelterbelt 

 planted in Oklahoma in 1935 by the Forest Service. The percentage 

 of survival has been high and many individual farmers have reported 

 beneficial results from their shelterbelts. 



INTEGRATION OF AGRICULTURE WITH FOREST 

 RESOURCES 



Of the 630,000,000 acres of forest lands in the continental United 

 States, approximately 462,000,000 acres are classed as capable of 

 producing timber fit for commercial use. This vast forest acreage 

 also directly affects the economic security of individuals, communities, 

 and the Nation. In some regions, for example, successful agriculture 

 can continue only if forest management and utilization create and 

 maintain nearby markets for farm crops. In other regions farm 

 population depends on forest work to produce cash incomes, while 

 farm work produces the bulk of the family food. Then, too, per- 

 manent agriculture depends, in many places, on irrigation. This, in 

 turn, depends on maintenance of plant cover on adjacent mountains 

 from which water supplies come; in turn, this depends on forest and 

 range conservation. In still other parts of the country, the Nation 

 now faces the huge task of replacing agricultural production on 

 worn-out or abandoned farm lands with forest production. Forms 

 and amounts of land use must also be changed so that human effort 

 devoted to agriculture may not destroy the land and waste itself. 



A more specific illustration of the close relationship that exists 

 between forest resources, agriculture, and human welfare may be 

 found in the longleaf-slash pine region of South Carolina, Georgia, 

 and north Florida. This is an area of approximately 30,000,000 

 acres, 70 percent of which is devoted to the growth of forest stands. 

 In it, agriculture is declining, and neither mining, manufactures, 

 oil, nor gas fields have developed to offset this decline. The growing, 



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