TREES BY THE MILLION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 13 January 1938, Page 9

TREES BY THE MILLION

FOR CANADA’S PRAIRIES SHELTER BELTS TO AID FIGHT ON DROUGHT During the present year two million trees will be planted in the three prairie provinces—Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta—under the farm rehabilitation programme, and six million more will be distributed for planting through ordinary channels. This afforestation is part of the longrange plan, in which the Dominion is co-operating actively with the provinces, for checking the ravages of soil drifting and helping to conserve moisture in the land that comprises what is called the drought area. For 36 years, Western farmers have been aided by the Federal Government in establishing desirable shelter belts of trees and hedges, expert forestry advice and supplies of tree seedlings being provided free from the two nursery stations in Saskatchewan. In that period over 145,000,000 tree seedlings and cuttings have been distributed to 55.000 farmers, and under the rehabilitation programme this service is being extended. Field crop shelter belt associations have been formed and comprise groups of farmers located on neighbouring farms who have undertaken with Government aid to plant shelter belts on their crop land, the belts being j spaced to enclose from 20 to 80 acres. The aim is to provide a check on high i winds, rapid evaporation and loss of ! snow cover. This purely experimental j work will require at least ten years to test its efficiency. In the last fiscal year $750,000 was appropriated by Parliament for prairie farm rehabilitation, and an additional $434,420, which was really an unexpended sum from the previous year, was revoted for large scale water development works, and for the present fiscal year the sum of $2,000,000 has been voted by Parliament for farm rehabilitation. Successive droughts have forced the Western farmers to adjust their cropping practices to make better use of the limited supplies of soil moisture, have driven them to prevent soil j drifting and repair its ravages, to retire some submarginal land from agri- j culture and to provide against future j recurrence of drought conditions and j build up reserves of feed and seed on private farms.