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saccharine bluestem, both of which overtop the oaks. This spectacle of a full grown oak "forest" bearing a wealth of grotesquely large acorns for such pigmy trees, and the whole overtopped by the tall bunch-grasses, is unique and botanically very attractive. It represents the best results nature has been able to attain in her effort to grow an oak forest upon a soil which to the highest degree conserves the scant rainfall it receives, when the above-ground portions of the vegetation are subjected to the terrifically evaporative effects of a very hot, dry and continuously windy atmosphere. Proponents of the shelter-belt project would do well to make a careful study of nature's achievement here before they set seriously about reviving their project on the tighter, more level, less conservative and more windswept high plains which constitute Region 12.

That is, moisture-retaining, referring to the capacity of the soil and sub-soil to hold quantities of water sufficient for plant requirements.