UNN OF PAPERS READ BEFORE THE American Forestry Association AT THE ANNUAL MEETINGS OF 1894-1895. OBSERVATIONS ON THE DESTRUCTIVE By Professor F. H. KING, Madison, Wis. We have in Wisconsin large tracts of land with soils of a light, sandy character, or sandy loam, which are now being developed for potato culture, and upon which fair yields of an excellent quality are had; but the clearing of these lands in large fields, as is now being done, has developed the fact that they are liable to serious injury from the drying and drifting action of winds. One of these sections, at Plainfield, was visited, on May 7th, when the destructive effects in question were in progress. There had been, on the 5th and 6th, what was described as a heavy rain, but no records are kept at the place, the nearest being at Stevens Point, in the same county, twenty-one miles distant, where the rainfall on these dates was .33 and .42 inches. The 7th was clear and cold, with a strong northwest wind, and during this and the following day, in spite of the recent rain, the fields at Plainfield and vicinity had drifted so badly that on the morning of the 8th, the loose soil, with which grain had Leen covered, whether with harrow, seeder or drill, had been so completely driven from many fields as to leave the kernels entirely naked, the plants lying flat upon the ground, hanging by their roots and whipping in the wind. In many other fields, where the drifting had not been so bad, the oats, which at the time stood about three inches high, were cured like hay close to the ground, and even the leaves of dock sorrel, which in places stood among the grain, were blackened and so dry as to crumble in the hand. The drifting of soil was so bad on some exposed fields that forty, and even eighty acres of grain seeded to clover were almost completely ruined, the loose soil being removed so entirely that the marks of the bottom of the shoe-drill could be seen over entire acres of ground. But the point to which I wish to call special attention here is the fact that wherever a field lay to the leeward of any sort of wind-break, the destructive effects of the winds were either wholly avoided or they were greatly reduced. On making a careful study of the district it was found that even grass-fields and fences lying to the west and north of grain fields, had, without exception, exerted an appreciable and sometimes very marked protective influence so much, indeed, that fields were found in the condition indicated by Figures 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 in the chart. (Explain chart.) Cornfields, too, drift badly at times when the corn is small or just coming up, and how full the air is of dust at these times is indicated by these two photos., both taken looking across the same field on the same day, one view being taken when there was a lull in the wind. (Show photos.) After making these observations, the influence of the woodlands and wind-breaks in question upon the rate of evaporation to the leeward of them was studied, and in making these investigations I used a modification of the Piche evaporometer, with disks large enough to carry sheets of filter paper 5.9 inches in diameter, the water receptacles being ordinary chemical burettes graduated to tenths C. C. and having diameters. |