Nebraska National Forest (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The Nebraska National Forest is a United States National Forest located in the U.S. state of Nebraska. The total area of the national forest is 142,000 acres (575 km2). The national forest comprises two ranger districts. The 90,000-acre (364 km2) Bessey Ranger District is located in the Sandhills of central Nebraska. Encompassing about 63.9% of the forest's total area, it lies in parts of Thomas and Blaine counties. It was established in 1902 by Charles E. Bessey as an experiment to see if forests could be created in treeless areas of the Great Plains for use as a national timber reserve. This effort resulted in a 20,000-acre (80.9 km2) forest, the largest human-planted forest in the United States. Today, the forest's nursery supplies 2.5 to 3 million seedlings per year.