AMERICAN DROUGHTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21874, 9 August 1934, Page 12

AMERICAN DROUGHTS

TREE-PLANTING SCHEME GREAT BELTS OF FOREST Private information received by Mr. F. E. Hutchinson, of the Canterbury College School of Forestry, concerning Mr. Roosevelt's afforestation scheme, announced in a recent cablegram, provides interesting comparisons with forestry work in New Zealand. The cable message, published in the Herald on July 23, stated that a shelter-belt of trees would be planted, 1000 miles long and 100 miles wide, to lessen the intensity of droughts and improve living conditions on the central plains of the United States. In actual fact, it is not intended to plant a solid belt of trees over tha whole area indicated. The planting is to be in strips, running north and south. Strips of trees nearly two chains wide, will alternate with strips of farm land. There will be 100 of these strips of trees and most of the area will remain unforested. It is expected that the complete programme will take 10 to 12 years to carry out, and the total cost is estimated at 75,000,000 dollars. Mr. Hutchinson informed the Press that the conditions of soil and climate which had made necessary the American afforestation scheme were exactly the samo as those obtaining in Canterbury. The wet Pacific coast of » the United States was analagous to the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand, the Rocky Mountains to the Southern Alps and the central areas to the Canterbury plains. Dry, scorching winds, similar to the north-west wind in Canterbury, made living conditions on the American prairies almost unbearable, woduced regular droughts and affected'adversely the fertility of the soil.