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As to the protection afforded by Evergreen tree-belts, Mr. J. J. 
Thomas says : ' 
“ Isaac Pullen, a well-known nursery man of Hightown, N. J., showed me 
last summer ( 1864) several bells of Evergreen trees which had sprung up from his 
nursery rows to a height of twenty-five to thirty feet in 10 years, and he stated that 
within the shelter of these screens his nursery trees, as well as farm crops, aver- 
aged fifty ]ier cent, more than in bleak or exposed places.” 
Mr. A. R. Whitney, of Franklin Grove, Illinois, who has an orch- 
ard of many thousand trees, and who is considered to be one of the 
most successful grower of apples in the Northwest, states that he has 
at different times in the past thirty'odd years planted different kinds 
of Evergreen trees in and around various parts of his orchard, and 
that these trees have attained a height of thirty to forty feet, and that 
any person who had any doubt about the beneficial results supposed to 
be derived from the protection afforded by belts and groups of 
Evergreen trees, are cordially invited to make a personal inspection 
of his orchard. 
Sargent says : 
“ The influence of trees especially of spiked-leaved species, on local climate is 
important. Such plantations serve as a material check to the natural force of cold 
winds from the north, which rapidly lower the temperature, hasten evaporation, 
and blow into drifts the snow which would otherwise protect the ground with an 
even covering. There is probably no way in which the farmers of this State could 
more easily or more rapidly increase its agricultural product than by planting such 
screens from the northeast to the northwest of their farms, and their attention is 
particularly directed to the importance of this subject, * * * a means of di- 
rect profit, it does not seem unreasonable to predict that such protection to our 
fields would increase the profits of their cultivation fully twenty per cent. Orchards 
thus protected are still productive, and all gardeners know that plants generally 
supposed too tender to support our climate will thrive when planted under the pro- 
tection of a garden wall, or among Evergreen trees. What garden walls are to the 
horticulturist, these broad Evergreen plantations should be to the farmer.” 
Becquerel, as quoted by the same author, says ; 
“ In the Valley of the Rhone a simple hedge two metres in height is sufficient 
protection for a distance of twenty two metres.” 
“ The mechanical shelter,” says Mr. Marsh, “ acts no doubt chiefly as a defense 
against the mechanical force of the wind ; but its uses are by no means limited to 
that effect. If the current of air moves horizontally, it would prevent the access of 
cohl or parching blasts to the ground for a great distance.” 
Mr. Marsh says Becquerel’s views — 
“Have been amply confirmed by recent extensive experiments on the bleak, 
stony and desolate plain of the Crau in the department of the bouches du Rhone, 
which had remained a naked waste from the earliest ages of history. Bells of trees 
prove a secure protection even against the piercing and chilly blasts of the Mistral, 
and in their shelter plantations of fruit-trees and vegetables thrive with the greatest 
luxuriance. 
Sargent says : 
“ Experiments of a similar nature on a large scale have been made in Holland, 
and lands which were formerly considered unimprovable, such was the force of the 
winds blowing from the North Sea, have been rendered almost the most pro- 
ductive in Europe, simply by sheltering them with rows of trees placed at regular 
intervals and .it right angles to the direction of the wind.” 
