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Windbreaks and Shelterbelts

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Windbreaks and Shelterbelts 191 WINDBREAKS AND SHELTERBELTS JOSEPH H. STOECKELER, ROSS A. WILLIAMS In an effort to determine the value The tree-protected animals gained of adequate windbreaks on American 34.9 more pounds each during a mild farms, 508 farmers in South Dakota winter, and lost 10.6 pounds less dur- and Nebraska were asked for their ing a severe winter, than the unpro- opinions. They placed the annual sav- tected herd. ings in their fuel bill alone at $15.85. Another experiment conducted by In another measure of the value, the V. I. Clark, superintendent of the ex- Lake States Forest Experiment Station periment station at Ardmore, S. Dak., conducted an experiment at Holdrege, involved the weighing of two herds of Nebr. Exact fuel requirements were cattle in different pastures—one pro- recorded in identical test houses. One tected by the natural tree and shrub was protected from winds; the other growth along a stream, the other with- was exposed to the full sweep of the out protection. They w^ere reweighed wind. From the experimental data it after a 3-day blizzard. The animals was possible to calculate the savings to that had some protection each lost an be expected under various prevailing average of 30 pounds less than those conditions, if a constant house tem- in the exposed pasture. perature of 70° F. were maintained. Farm families depend upon gardens The amount of fuel used was reduced for much of their subsistence, and most by 22.9 percent. of them are aware of the influence of a Also the average of the savings for windbreak in increasing the quality houses protected on the north in Hol- and quantity of vegetables and fruit drege and three other localities in the from gardens and orchards. In the Great Plains—Huron, S. Dak., Dodge opinions of farmers interviewed, the City, Kans., and Fargo, N. Dak.—was increase was $67.15 on 323 farms in 20.2 percent. Assuming a 10-ton an- Nebraska and $84.43 on 260 farms in nual consumption of coal, this repre- South Dakota. A few farmers believed sents a saving of 2 tons of coal a year. the windbreaks did not increase the Under good protection, on three sides production of their gardens. of a house, the fuel saving may run as W. P. Baird, horticulturist in charge high as 30 percent. of fruit and vegetable investigations at Dairymen, livestock feeders, and the Northern Great Plains Field Sta- breeders have rather positive ideas of tion at Mandan, N. Dak., says that "a how the protection afforded by trees windbreak is on duty protecting the reduces their feed bills and increases fruit gardens at all seasons of the year, their calf crops. Eighty-six livestock and it is almost useless to consider feeders in Nebraska and South Dakota growing fruit on the Plains without placed this average annual saving at such protection." m.ore than $800 ; 62 livestock breeders So far we have discussed windbreaks, reported that their savings amounted which are the shorter and more blocky to more than $500 annually; 53 dairy- plantings about farmsteads. Much like men placed their savings at $600. them, but more extensive, are the shel- Further study of the subject was terbelts, a term used to denote com- made at the Montana Agricultural paratively narrow strip plantings— Experiment Station at Havre. Two sometimes single rows of trees—that herds of cattle were wintered on the are designed to protect fields. same rations—one in the protection of trees and shrubs, the other in an open EXPERIENCE with systematic plant- lot with some protection from a shed. ings of shcltcrbclts to protect fields goes 192 Yearboo\ of Agriculture 1949 back to 1789. when a group of German the time the act was in force can be Mennonites, who emigrated to the attributed directly to it. Russian Steppes, began the shelterbclts It has been the history of tree plant- that since have been extended to thou- ing throughout the world that the sands of miles. The term "sheherbelt" establishment of windbreaks and shel- was used as early as 1833, so it is appar- terbclts has not progressed fast enough ent that some thought for controlling to keep pace with the needs without wind erosion by use of trees was in some assistance by the Government. existence over a century ago. Since the The thousands of miles of shelterbclts days of the shelterbelt project, initiated that now protect millions of acres of in the Great Plains some 14 years ago, farm lands in Russia; the mile after the term has become part of the every- mile of tree strips in Jutland, without day language of farmers on the Plains. which farming would be impossible; Few tree planters were among the similar planting in Hungary; the 18,- earliest settlers of the United States. 510 miles of tree belts planted in the They camci when the westward migra- Great Plains shelterbelt from North tion started to the prairies of Illinois Dakota to Texas; and the 211 million and the Great Plains; those pioneers trees planted to shelterbclts and wind- realized that it was going to take more breaks in the Prairie Provinces of Can- than a sod house to give them the pro- ada—all owe their success to sound tection to which they had been accus- Government policies put into effect tomed in the wooded East. It was not through wxll-administered and Gov- surprising, therefore, that a plantation ernment-assisted projects. of trees often shared with the garden There was a period in the United the first patch of sod that was bro- States after the repeal of the Timber ken. Wildings collected along nearby Culture Act in 1891 when little public streams comprised their planting stock. encouragement was given to tree plant- We have records of some of these plant- ers. A renewal of interest w^as shown in ings in Nebraska Territory as early as 1904 with the passage of the Kincaid 1854; many are still alive, monuments Act and later, in 1916, by the inclusion to the courage of the pioneers and evi- of the demonstrational tree planting dence of the desirability of using hardy, in the program of the Northern Great native planting stock. Later immi- Plains Field Station near Mandan, grants from Europe often brought tree N. Dak. seeds with them from their old homes. The available records through Jan- The passage of the Homestead Law uary 1, 1948, indicate that some in 1862 brought more sí^ttlers to the 123,191 miles of windbreaks and shel- Great Plains and the need for more terbclts have been planted since the tree planting. Kansas was the first, in middle of the past century. Of 96,596 1865, to provide a tree-bounty law in miles planted through private initia- efiforts to encourage more planting. tive, 39,400 arc accounted for by sin- This w^as followtid in 1869 by Nebraska gle row Osage-orange hedges planted and the Dakota Territory which passed between 1865 and 1939 by farmcTs of tax-exemption laws that favored tree Kansas, encouraged by a State bounty. planting. J. Sterling Morton, third The shelterbelt project, sometimes Secretary of Agriculture, founded Ar- referred to as the Prairie States For- bor Day and saw its first official cele- estry Project, was establish(^d in 1934, bration in his home State of Nebraska a time of serious drought, dust storms, in 1872. It was primarily through his and depression. Its purpose was to encouragement that the Timber Cul- plant badly needed shelterbclts and at ture Act was passed by Congress in the same time provide work for people 1873. Although it helped to stimulate in the drought-stricken Great Plains. tree planting, probably fewer than one- In the Great Plains between 1935 third of the trees established during and 1942, 18,510 miles of field shelter- Windbreaks and Shelterbelts ^93 belts, not counting those on farmsteads, the same damages, but the greatest were planted by the Forest Service, benefits are realized from protecting The Soil Conservation Service of the the trees during the pollination stage Department of Agriculture (to which and preventing wind damage to the the work was transferred in 1942) ripening fruit. planted 8,363 miles between 1934 and Besides, properly located and ar- 1949 in its program on soil conserva- ranged shelterbelts can do much to tion districts. The Wisconsin State beautify the landscape and act as snow Conservation Department furnished fences in winter, thus helping to keep stock and, with the Extension Service, open highways and rural roads. was responsible for establishing 5,942 Thomas T. Wilson, of the Manitoba miles of shelterbelts. In California, the Department of Public Works, said that fruit-tree growers planted 2,000 miles planted snow traps can be consider- of belts to protect citrus orchards and ably cheaper than the usual slat-wire vineyards. In Indiana, truck garden- snow fence. His data, based on 201.6 ers have planted 100 miles on muck miles of caragana hedge, indicates a land. Many more miles of shelterbelts prorated cost per mile for a year of for which no published records are about $100, assuming an average effec- available probably have been planted tive life of 25 years for the planting. in other States. Prorated costs of slat-wire snow fences were about $225 per mile for a year, THE FARM PLANTINGS before 1935 assuming an average life of 20 years did not include the large numbers that for this type of fence. Hence, the cost could also be classified as shelterbelts, of the planted hedges is less than half but landowners who were fortunate that of slat-wire snow fence.
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