1000 MILES OF TREES.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20364, 23 July 1934, Page 8

1000 MILES OF TREES.

U.S. Drought Prevention Scheme. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. WASHINGTON, July 21. An executive order has been issued authorising a vast land preserving programme which is expected materially to lessen the drought menace in the middle and Western States. The sum of 15,000,000 dollars has been allocated for the preliminary work for planting a belt of trees 100 miles wide and 1000 miles long, stretching from Canada to the northwestern portion of Texas. The belt cf trees is expected to break the dry du&t winds, which cause so much damage, and also to preserve much of the land moisture. The project will require ten years to complete and will cost 75,000,000 dollars.

The belt will cross the States of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and will go far into Texas. It will cover about 61,000,000 acres.

The heat wave spread over practically the whole cf the United States on Thursday and Friday, causing some eighty-five fatalities through sunstrokes, prostrations and drownings. Showers brought some relief to New York’s sweltering millions. Additional crop damage has been done in the drought-stricken agricultural sections of the middle and west, where temperatures as high as 114 degrees were recorded. SERIOUS LOSS OF LIFE. SAN FRANCISCO, July 21. The persistent heat wave throughout Saturday claimed 106 lives, while damage to the nation’s crop fields mounted to millions of dollars. The death toll for the three days of super-heat was 235. Only the northern border and the west escaped Saturday’s siege. Missouri State led in the death total with sixty-six. The weather forecast said: The blazing rainless spell will continue indefinitely.

Forced selling because of water shortage and burned meadows brought a heavy influx of livestock that threatened demoralisation of the Kansas City livestock market, where representatives from Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Arkansas have been called into a State drought conference on Monday. In Nebraska alone, the damage is estimated at 156,000,000 dollars.