EXPERIMENTAL TREE PLANTING IN THE PLAINS. 
INTRODUCTION. 
An effort has been made in this bulletin to bring together a record 
of experimental plantings, not yet sufficiently extended to be more 
than suggestive, which have been conducted by the Department of 
Agriculture during the last two years. It seemed in this connection 
desirable to give also a brief discussion of conditions affecting tree 
growth, with special reference to those encountered in the Western 
plains, where the plantations are mostly located. 
The forestless region of America ineludes all the States between the 
Mississippi River north of the Ozark Mountains and eastern Texas, 
and the Rocky Mountains, together with the plateau west of the 
Rocky Mountains. The possibilities of forest growth in this vast area 
are yet to be proved. Roughly speaking, any species that thrive in the 
adjacent wooded regions can be grown in Iowa, the Red River Valley 
of Minnesota and North Dakota, the Sioux Valley of South Dakota 
and the eastern counties of Nebraska, and in the more southern States. 
We know that difficulties of cultivation increase rapidly as one goes 
westward, but we can not say where the western limit of successful 
tree culture is. We can not even define the limits of successful agri- 
culture in the plains, for with increased facilities for irrigation splen- 
did crops are now produced where only a few years ago it was thought 
desert conditions would forever prevail. 
It is admitted that forest planting, as a financial investment, will 
probably be profitable on the plains only in a limited degree. Favor. 
able sites may enable the profitable raising of fence posts and other 
specialized tree crops, but the growing of timber on a commercial scale 
can hardly be expected. The quick and sure returns of agricultural 
crops warrant the farmer in supporting expensive irrigation works in 
the semiarid West, but we can hardly foresee a time when even an 
approximate expenditure for the maintenance of a forest crop would 
prove profitable except for the protection afforded by it. While this is 
probably true, there yet remains for demonstration the limitations of 
tree culture within the possibilities of the Western farmer—what spe- 
cies are adapted to his land; what methods give promise of success; 
what can he do to improve conditions and so make possible not only 
the growth of useful timber, but also a ereater variety of agricultural 
operations. As has been intimated, the difficulties of tree growing 
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