40 
Sherman Nursery Company, Charles City, Iowa 
The Evergreen Windbreak 
The picture shows a Sherman Norway Spruce 
windbreak 10 years after planting-. It shows 
plainly the efficiency of the evergreen as a 
windbreak tree. 
The evergreen carries its foliage all the year 
around, while other trees shed their leaves at 
the time when protection is needed most. The 
evergreen also carries its branches clear to the 
ground, so that it forms a solid shelter wall, 
completely effective from the ground up, and 
causes the force of the wind to shoot upward 
and over the area immediately behind it. In 
the case of deciduous trees the wind is merely 
retarded by the naked branches while below 
there is practically no protection. 
The ambition of every farmer on the prairies 
has been to have an evergreen windbreak or 
grove about his buildings. No other class of 
trees affords the same degree of shelter, or 
adds so much beauty and dignity to the farm 
home as a well grown shelterbelt of evergreens. 
An evergreen windbreak pays big dividends 
every year in personal comfort to its owner and 
family and in increased profits which are the 
direct result of effective winter protection. 
A farmer sheltered by an evergreen wind¬ 
break has one of the greatest farm relief agen¬ 
cies ever created. In summer it protects his 
farm buildings from hot winds and dust, in win¬ 
ter it quiets the fury of the cold winds and pulls 
the snow up short. 
The farmer’s house is built warm and is 
heated by coal or wood, which are cheap fuels. 
The farmer’s barn is not built nearly as warm 
as his house, and it must be heated with ani¬ 
mal heat, and grain and hay are expensive 
fuels. On cold windy days in winter the farmer 
without a windbreak actually loses money. His 
animals need most of their energy to keep 
warm, and they have nothing left to turn into 
milk or added weight. 
Prosperity smiles on the man behind an ever¬ 
green windbreak. His hogs and steers are 
ready for market sooner and with less feed 
than his neighbor’s. His cows give him a full 
pail when milk brings the highest prices. His 
hens lay eggs when his neighbor’s hens are 
shivering on the roosts. He does his chores 
cheerfully and in comfort, for he is protected 
by an evergreen windbreak. 
As the largest growers of evergreens in the 
world we have made it a point to study the 
planting- of windbreak evergreens. 
The windbreak will make better growth if 
the ground is ploughed and disced before the 
evergreens are planted, and if the trees are cul¬ 
tivated the first few seasons. It is all right 
to grow garden truck between the tree rows 
as long as the trees are small. Use care in 
cultivating so the trees are not bruised or 
damaged. Always keep the windbreak fenced 
off from livestock or the lower limbs will be 
damaged and both the looks and the usefulness 
of the windbreak will be sacrificed. 
To produce the most efficient windbreak we 
recommend planting the trees 14 feet apart 
in the row and the rows 8 feet apart, setting 
the rows so that the trees break joints in this 
manner: 
X 
X 
X 
X 
X 
X 
X 
X 
X 
X 
X 
X 
X 
X 
X 
X 
X 
X 
X 
X 
Planted in this way the windbreak occupies 
little ground; the trees are close enough be¬ 
tween the rows that the snow does not lodge 
among the trees; an unbroken wall is secured 
with the fewest number of trees, and the crowd¬ 
ing makes the center row grow tall while the 
outside rows supply protection close to the 
ground. 
One hundred trees will make 450 feet of 
windbreak of this type. To obtain the number 
