Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1857-08-19
The Value of Trees.


ing article from the ~. Il. Review. 1t gives
a clear explanation of the cause which makes
Michigan far more healthy than many of the
western states.
In an open country, the absolute quantity
of water which the rivers discharge, is not
only less than in wooded country, but the
flow is incomparably more irregular and I'M
equal. This week the stream may be foam
ing torrent, forbidding all passage; next week
it will be only sluggish pool which scarcely
vets your horses fetlocks. Since our west
ern lands have been cleared, the alterations
in the rivers have been much more marked
and violent
The fact has been vexatiously brought
home to our practical men by the constant
hindrance of the mill-streams from freshets
and droughts. Many water-privilegcs which
half century ago, were steady and valuable
have now become nearly worthless. The
dam which was conveniently put up to saw an
adjoining forest into profitable plank, now
that its excellent work is done, will drive the
saw in the summer no longer. The good
riparian mill-owners of one of the ponds in
the vicinity of Boston remarked with amaze
ment, some ten years ago, that the supply of
water seemed to be failing them, and that
the feeding stream had utterly dried up--a
thing never known by the oldest inhabitant.
Within few years the stream has regained
its volume, and now flows full, even in the
heats of summer. The secret of these chan
ges was, that the water first disappeared on
account of the cutting away of the forests
about its source, few miles distant, and re-
turned when the young wood had grown
there. Not few of our larger factories
have been compelled to introduce steam pow
or to supply deficiency in the volume of
water which, few years ago. was not troub
lesome. Indeed, the word "inexhaustible"
can now hardly be used of any water-priyi
lege in New England. We do not believe
though some high authorities maintain this
view, that the cutting away of forests dimin-
ishes the quantity of rain or snow; but we
only contend that it deprives the moisture
of its benefcent effect upon the earth by
causing it to be too rapidly distracted, and
producing the pernicious alterations of fresh
ct and drought which are ~as fatal to the
health of the soil as to the health of those
who own the soil.
1t is most mistaken notion that trees
around a house render it unhealthy.
Medical statistics give verdict in favor of
woodland as against cleared land. The wood
choppers of Maine are far more free from dis
ease than the farmers of Illinois, and scarcely
know, in all their exposure, what it is to be
cramped by rheumatism or parched by fever
Dismal Swamp is as healthy as Sullvan's ISL
and, and the malaria which hangs along all
the southern sea-board finds no place in that
dreadful thicket. Pestilence does not choose
those sections of country or those quarters of
cities which are greenest, but those which are
most bare and open. Dampness is not the
source of malaria but decomposition caused
by too rapid drying, whether of vegetable
matter or animal infusoria. bitches and stag
nant pools are, to be sure, not very desirable
purifiers of the surrounding air, and generate
= more serious plaques than their legions of
frogs; but ditch which alternates from wet
to dry, or pool that is weekly emptied and
repenshed, as the wind and shower follow
each other gives forth much more deadly
poison than any ground which is steadily and
uniformly saturated with water Over these
waters to-day, the poison hangs and fingers,
and gives itself to load the breeze tomorrow.
In woods, on the contrary, while the decom-
position Of vegetable and animal matter goes
on far more slowly, the poison which is cvol-
we'd is taken up by the trees themselves, to
which it is food and nourishment.
Mr. Timothy Flint, in his account of the
Mississippi Valley, mentions the fact that the
wood-cutters on the banks of the streams where
the trees had been cut away were constantly
attacked by malarious fevers, while such dis
eases among the workmen in the forest were
comparatively rare, although the ground on
which they worked was quite as moist. Ev-
cry tree which they left to decay on the
ground helped to create the poison, while ev-
cry tree left standing helped to absorb it.
There are several reasons why forests affect
favorably the health of a locality or neighbor-
hood. Two of these we have already men,
tioned-that they check the formation of poi
sonous miasma, and that they absorb it when
it is formed, and so prevent its pernicious in
fiuence. But their effect upon climate is ev-
en- moro noticeable and unquestionable.-
They equalize the heat of the atmosphere,
and so prevent those extremes which have
come, in these latter years, to be the bane of
New England. There can be little doubt