Shelter for Farms. 
The importance of shelter has been long and well 
understood by gardeners. Wall-protection has been 
in use from time immemorial. Every skilfull horti¬ 
culturist is aware that tender plants will survive se¬ 
vere winters when surrounded or overshadowed by 
evergreen trees ; and the same result has been observ¬ 
ed on plants growing in common woods. The shelter 
of high picket fences, in parallel rows, enabled Fre¬ 
derick Tudor of Nahant, to transform a bleak sur¬ 
face, where the ocean-tempest and spray prevented the 
growth of a single natdral shrub cr tree, into one of 
the most luxuriant gardens of the country. 
But the importance of shelter on farms, and more 
especially for the protection of crops, has not been ge¬ 
nerally appreciated. Exposed surfaces, over which 
the cutting winds of winter sweep freely, are injuri¬ 
ously affected in many ways. The snow, which should 
form a protecting mantle, is swept off into drifts, and 
the bare earth subjected to the full action of the hard¬ 
est frosts. Young plants of grass and winter grain, 
after being heaved up by this intense freezing-, are 
beaten about and often actually torn out by the action 
of the strong wind upon them. This every observant 
farmer must have seen. But winter is not the only 
season of injury. Sweeping tempests beat down grain 
fields, level the heavy grass of meadows, and break 
and injure young half-grown fields of corn. Young 
and newly planted orchards are severely frozen, whip¬ 
ped about, destroyed, and dried up by the blasts which 
for several winter months sweep over them. 
To avoid these evils, an experienced farmer of west¬ 
ern Nevv-York has made to us a valuable suggestion, 
well worthy of the careful and timely attention of 
every occupant of new land. He proposes th^t every 
farmer who is about to clear the land of its forests, 
should leave a strip or belt of woods, at least four rods 
wide, at distances asunder not exceeding eighty rods, 
and running in such a direction as to afford shelter 
from the prevailing winds. This should be kept fenced 
on both sides, so as to allow the thick growth of young 
trees, which will render the screen more perfect, and 
afford a constant succession as the older trees are re¬ 
moved for fuel. Every farmer needs a certain amount 
of reserved woodland; and it may be as well reserved 
in this advantageous shape, as in one that from its po¬ 
sition shall be of no benefit to the land. On small 
farms, one single belt, of such a. width as may afford 
the necessary wood for use, judiciously located to pro¬ 
tect the farm, may be sufficient; on large ones they 
should be at regular intervals. In many cases, the 
borders of a gully or stream may be selected as the 
place for the woods, where the wet or broken land would 
be of comparatively little value. Farmers are some¬ 
times greatly incommoded by their neighbors clear¬ 
ing away woodland, on which they had depended for 
protection ; but no such inconvenience would be felt if 
they had made proper provisions on their own land. 
Some of the trees thus left exposed, may be blown 
down by the winds, but the rest will soon become in¬ 
ured to the exposure, and the inconvenience from this 
source will not be great, so long as a portion is occa¬ 
sionally wanted for use. 
A great advantage in having a portion of the origi¬ 
nal forests, above that of planting belts artificially, is 
the great" height of the screen, the woods in many 
places being seventy to ninety feet high, and sometimes 
even more. Yet in frequent instances, where farms 
have been entirely denuded by the early settlers, belts 
of fast-growing trees may be planted, and will afford 
good protection after a lapse of a comparatively few 
years, and their timber may prove eminently valuable. 
There is perhaps no kind of tree that promises so 
much profit as the locust , even with the occasional dan¬ 
ger of injury by the borer. They will often grow fifty 
feet high in twenty-five years, if planted closely. 
Less valuable for timber, but very rapid growers, are 
the chestnut, the common elm,the silver maple, the Eu¬ 
ropean larch, and the Norway fir; with some of these 
on rich lands, screens thirty feet high may be had in 
ten years. The silver poplar exceeds all in rapid 
growth, but its wood is worth but little. 
An important advantage, to be occasionally derived 
from shelter, has not been mentioned in the preceding 
remarks. Farmers who are familiar with the different 
appearances of rust in wheat, are aware that al¬ 
though it often attacks the grain crop in patches with 
various degrees of severity, affecting most those por¬ 
tions which grow on low and mucky lands, yet at oth¬ 
er times and in its most virulent form, it seems borne 
on the wind, and often destroys thousands of acres on 
