The south-western. [volume] (Shreveport, La.) 1852-1870, 1856-05-21
40.

How THE DESTRUCTION OF TREES AFFECTS
THE RA1N.--We find in a magazine before us,
says the Savannah Republican, an interesting
article upon the subject, synopsis OF which
will be found both interesting and instructive to
farmers and landed propretors. By cutting
down the trees upon mountain sides and ravincS,
we are inevitably entaing two great evils upon
posterity scarcity of fuel and a scarcity Of
water The former evil is the more obvious,
but the latter is equally certain and far more
formidable. The lack of wood for fuel may be
supplied from our abundant accumulation of
coal, but no art or labor can supply a substitute
for water.
The hidden fountains of all our springs and
rivers are in the atmosphere; every drop of
fresh water is drawn, in the form of dew OF
rain, from these inexhaustible, ever renewed
reservoirs. Trees act in many ways in nregua
ting and distributing the supply of moisture
In certain localities they even produce a sens-
BILE effect upon the amount of moisture deposl-
ted from the atmosphere. Thus, in the island
of St. Helena, great attention has been paid
within the last quarter OF century to the plant
ing of trees upon the steep bare hillSides; and
it has been found that the fall of water has al
most doubled since the time when Napoleon
was prisoner there. The reason is obvious.
The winds, loaded with moisture eyhaled from
the ocean over which they have passed, sweep
over the island. The trees condense this, and
it is deposited in dew or rain. Still more re-
markabIv is this shown in the famous fountain
on Fero, one of the Canary islands. So great
is their condensing power that they seem to be
always wrapped ina vapory cloud, and the mols-
ture collects in drops upon the leaves, trickles
j a., Il, ,floc
into reservoir at their feet, forms perpetual
fountain. 1t is a repetition on larger scale of
the phenomenon which occurs when Jug of
iced water is brought into a heated room.
We have of late years heard much Of drought
lands The soil is of a peculiarly porous ma
ture, and therefore requires a constant supply
of moisture as an indispensable condition of fer
tility. For a long time the climate has been
constantly growing less and less humid. The
Socorrodos, the largest river in Madeira, for
merly had sufficient depth of water to float
timber down to the sea. 1t is now mere rlv-
ulet, whose waters, except in flood time, are
scarcely discoverable as they trickle along its
: pebbly bed. This dmnution of moisture can
be traced directly to the destruction of forests
that formerly covered the mountain sides. The
Portuguese government were early aware of
this, and laws were framed prohibiting the cut
ting down of trees. But timber valuable,
and the land was wanted for vineyards Por-
tuguese laws were powerless against the de-
mands ofimmediate interest So the trees were
cut down, the springs failed, and fountains
. dried up. Hence came drought and famine.
Trees regulate the supply of moisture IN ma
ny ways, even where we cannot suppose that
they affect its absolute amount The cvapora-
ton from their leaves is considerable, and this.
dtfused through the atmosphere, is waited over
wide tracts of country They shelter the ground
beneath them, and thus prevent the water that
falls from being carried off by evaporation, al
lowing it to penetrate the earth, keeping the
springs and fountains in perpetual flow In the
drest seasons. Their roots and interacing
: fbres penetrate the soil, preventing it from be
u ing washed away by sudden showers, and form
ing sort of sponge that absorbs the water,
and gives it out slowly and uniformly, thus
equaslng its flow, preventing droughts on the
one hand, and floods on the other. When the
forests the hillsides and ravine slopes are cut
down, the rain slides off from them as from roof
I A sudden shower swells every rivulet into tor
rent. Every tiny brook pours its accumulation
at once in the rivers whose channels are mad
equate to carry off the sudden accession, hence
disastrous nundations, followed at short inter
walls by low water. The supply of water thas
should have been distributed over weeksis ex-
> hausted in hours. That which should have
bubbed up in springs and flowed through riv
ulets, making the meadows green, is carried at
once through the great rivers to the ocean, to-
be again taken up by evaporation only to 60
again through the same round The volume
of the great rivers, the Danubes. the Mississip
pis, the Niles, the Rhines and the Euphrates
may undergo no change from age to age; for
they derive their waters from wide extent of
country, and droughts in one section are bal
anced by showers in another. But the smaller
rivers diminish, the rivulets dry up, and the
springs fail, except Immediately after rains,
when they are greatly swollen. Thus by the
operation of one law the destruction of forests
causes the two evils of floods and dreughts.
I HUMBOLDT called public attention to the prob
able consequences of the destruction of forests
as early as the year 1900. 1t is a well known
fact, that the lakes in the valley of Mexico have
greatly contracted since the old Astec times.
The city of Mexico occupies Its ancient site, but
it is now some distance inshere, instead of Or
an island as formerly. This is TO be ascribed
to the telling of the forests that clothed the ad
jacent hills The British association has COL
Iected from India a vast amount of information
bearing upon the same point. Among the hills
of Ceylon, where the forests have been cut
down, in order to form coffee plantations, the
loss of the springs and fountains has already
become an evil of great magnitude.
Our own country is yet too new, and our for
ests, in spite of woodmen and axes, too numer
GUS for the scarcity of water to have become 3
serious evil. But like causes produce like eff
tects; and unless We change our procedure, our
children will suffer from our wanton careless
ness. We have no right for our own tempo
rary advantage to desolate the country. No
generation has more than ife-interest in the
earth, of which it is but the trustee of posterity.
Every man who has revisited his early home
IN the elder States, after an absence of a few
years, cannot have failed to notice the dimnu
ton of the streams and springs. There is prob
ably no water in The brook that turned his wa
ter wheel. The springs in the pasture which