NURSERY PRACTICE FOR PRAIRIE-PLAINS PLANTING 6 



Congress on March 3, 1873. In brief, this act with its subsequent 

 amendments provided the settler with free land on the stipulation 

 that he plant and care for a certain acreage of trees. After the repeal 

 of the act in 1891, interest in tree pJanting suffered a temporary slump. 

 Today, most of the remaining windbreaks planted in " tree-claim" 

 days are overmature and in need of replacement. 



In recent years, the passage of the Clarke-McNary Act of June 7, 

 1924, has revived interest in tree planting. This act, among other 

 things, provides for Federal and State cooperation in distributing 



Figure 2.— This double row of cottonwoods along a Kansas highway serves a 

 dual purpose in beautifying the highway and reducing wind erosion of adjacent 

 agricultural fields. 



nursery stock to farmers for demonstrations of farmstead and wind- 

 break planting. In 1935 the Federal Government, acting through 

 the Forest Service, started a large-scale program of shelterbelt planting 

 on the prairie-plains within a zone 100 miles wide and 1,150 miles 

 long. The zone extends through eastern North Dakota and South 

 Dakota, central Nebraska and Kansas, western Oklahoma, into 

 northern Texas. From 1935 to July 1, 1940, 14,140 miles of shelter- 

 belts were planted under this program. 



The Cooperative Farm Forestry Act, approved May 18, 1937, 

 provides for demonstration, extension, and research in farm forestry 

 and tree planting. The act provides that the work be initiated 

 jointly by the various States and the Federal Government. 



Planting of trees and shrubs is now one of the largest activities of 

 the Forest Service in the prairie-plains region, and one in which the 

 Soil Conservation Service and other public agencies are making large 



