[Illustration:  Norway Poplar windbreak at Devil’s Lake, N.D.]

I have a question here:  How long should a shelter-belt be cultivated?  Now, that is a point on which I think too much emphasis is placed.  If you set out your trees as Judge Moyer did his, close together, inside of a few years they will take care of themselves, they will form forest conditions very quickly, and cultivation is not necessary any more.  Of course, if you set your trees a great distance apart where there is nothing to protect them from the burning sun, and the ground bakes and dries, then you must cultivate or mulch, but I think cultivation much better than mulching.

Another question:  How many rows of trees make a good windbreak?  My idea is that it takes twenty rows to make a good one—­of deciduous trees, of course.  Two or three rows of evergreens, planted not further than eight feet apart and with joints broken, probably makes as good a windbreak as the twenty rows of deciduous trees and take less ground.

Mr. Horton:  Wouldn’t you have an open space in those trees?  You wouldn’t put them all together?

Mr. Maher:  If I had twenty rows of trees I would put them together.

Mr. Horton:  Would you have an open space outside of those twenty trees for the snow to lodge in?

[Illustration:  Ponderosa Pine windbreak—­at Devil’s Lake (N.D.) Nursery.]

Mr. Maher:  I have never known the snow to do any hurt in a twenty row windbreak.  It distributes itself in there, and the more comes the better.

Mr. Horton:  I have seen them broken badly with the snow.

Mr. Maher:  That would be probably the poplars and trees that break easily.

Mr. Horton:  On my farm I put out a row of twenty trees.  Outside of that I left a space on the north and west six rods wide, and I put out some golden willows outside of that, and that made an open space for the snow to fall in.

Mr. Maher:  That is a very good plan, to have a row of willows back of your shelter-belt, especially around the home and orchard and barn ground, to hold the snow back.

Mr. Moyer:  I found that the snow drifted into my evergreens but didn’t break them.  I used lilac bushes; I planted a long row.  Lilacs are very common, and I got enough to plant a long row.  They are now ten feet high, and it is a magnificent sight in summer.

Mr. Maher:  I know the lilac is a splendid thing, better than the golden willow, because they last longer.  They are more hardy, and they make a better protection, and as far as wood goes from the golden willows you get nothing except branches unless it is the white willow.

I have another question here:  What would you plant around the garden?  For a windbreak around the garden orchard, that should have an inside protection, and the shelter-belt itself should be too far away from the garden to be sufficient protection.  Around the garden I would plant Juneberry or dogwood or any of those common native berry plants.  They will afford the very best kind of protection, just as good as the lilacs and just as hardy, and at the same time will produce food for the birds and bring them about your garden and keep them with you and shelter them.