📖 🇺🇸 🏡 Remembering and rebuilding first shelterbelts

Trees have been planted by nature and humans on the Plains region since ancient times, making the region more livable for man and beast. While the Prairie States Forestry Project of Roosevelt’s New Deal administered the planting of almost a quarter-million acres of windbreaks over an eight-year period, many of these shelterbelts have been removed over time. That said, a fair amount of these historic shelterbelts remain across the prairie states, still providing good service to landowners.

This was not necessarily an original idea. European settlers on the Plains brought their tree-planting methods with them to their new homesteads after the Civil War. For instance, as early as 1885, a tree-planting project took place at South Dakota State University at Brookings, where students planted trees for shelterbelts on the campus during their spring term.

https://www.farmprogress.com/conservation-and-sustainability/remembering-and-rebuilding-first-shelterbelts