A DISCUSSION LED BY JOHN W. MAHER, NURSERYMAN, DEVILS LAKE, N. DAK.
Mr. Maher: The subject this morning is to be on "Shelter-Belt for Orchard and Home Grounds." I am satisfied, provided the "Home Grounds" include the whole farm.
The entire farm needs shelter, particularly from the hot, drying winds and other destructive winds that uncover and cut down crops in springtime and carry away the fertile top soil; and the summer winds, hot winds, of course, that eat up the moisture; and those destructive winds that sometimes harvest our barley and other crops before they are cut. We need protection from all these winds, and in this latitude these winds blow uniformly from the southwest. So every farm should be protected from them by a substantial shelter-belt on the west and south sides, which can also be the farm wood-lot.
Apple tree windbreak at Devil's Lake Nursery. Hibernal in the foreground. Patten's Greening in the distance.
There is another phase of protection that has been emphasized this year very much, and that is, protection against summer frosts and late spring frosts. A gentleman living at McIntosh, near Crookston, in this state, told me that corn matured up there wherever it was protected from the north wind. At the Devils Lake Nursery we had a 400-bushel per acre potato crop protected only by the blocks of nursery stock, whereas the yield in the vicinity was from nothing to fifty bushels per acre—and I believe if Mr. Andrews will inquire into the location of the good apple crops about Faribault he will probably find they were saved by similar shelter protection, or the natural lay of the land.
Mr. Kellogg: What is your best windbreak?
Mr. Maher: The evergreen is the best windbreak for the reason that it gives more shelter, retains its leaves in the winter and fewer rows of trees will make a good shelter-belt. The variety—that is, west of the timber line in Minnesota—I should say the best would be the Ponderosa pine, or bull pine, after that the jack pine may be, or else the Colorado blue spruce and the Black Hills spruce.
Mr. Kellogg: Colorado spruce is too expensive to set out as a windbreak.
Mr. Maher: Well, the green varieties. I don't see why they should be any more costly than the others. Of course, they are held at a higher price, but they make a good windbreak because they are easily grown and are perfectly hardy to stand the dry atmosphere and the hot winds.