The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1861-04-20
from the Leavenworth Conservative
WHY OUR FARMERS SHOULD PLANT
TREES

The best thing Kansas farmer can do.
is to secure ten acres of woodland on his
quarter section. We have no natural for
ests. but all our prsries are capable Of pro-
ducing heavy growth of timber. Trees
can be made to grow on every foot OF our
State, and, when once planted, they will be
the means of creating moisture, feeding
streams and springs, preventing the sudden
rises in the creeks and rivers, protecting
cattle and fruit from Eevere winds, and
ameliorating the climate. These are very
important objects, and they can easily and
speedily be secured by care and attention.
No fact is better ascertained than that
trees and forests have beneficial effect up
on the atmosphere and the bealthfulness OF
the climate Trees feed upon carbonic acid,
ammoniacal gas, and the watery vapor
WHICH goes to make up malaria" In the
absence of trees this poisonous dish is served
up for man; he eats il and gets the "shakes"
because he was too indolent to plant a
forest. -
Of all plants the sunfower is the most
greedy consumer of malaria '-twenIy-two
ounces day is its stated bill Of fare.
1.-THE family of the Superintendent of the
National Observatory at Washington,
Lieut.. Maury) were subject to agues and
f-vers every summer, the effect OF the ex-
halarion of marshes on the bank of the Po-
tomac The learned Lieutenant planted
one.spring, a large breadth of suntiowers.
The aerial scavengers consumed the mias-
matte constituents of the atmosphere. and
,or the first time since the place was iEhab-
tied the residents escaped the chills and fe-
vers. The effect was no more mysterious
than is the absence of cholera where bug
yards, frequent showers, or the activity oil
man has destroyed or removed the filth of a
crowded city. A field of hops, cabbages.
or Indian corn, or a nursery of trees, would
doubtless have produced the same result
Experiments have shown that scarcely one
halt the amount of water consumed by
growing plants is supplied by rain. the re-
msinder being procured by absorption from
The watery vapor of the atmosphere"
Won Humboldt, in his Views of Ma
ture." explains the reason of the effect o.
forests on the climate s 5..
1.-The forest region acts in a threefold
manner, by the GOODNESS induced by its
shade, by evaporation. and by the cooling
process of radiation. Forests protect
the ground from direct insulation, evapor-
ate the fluids they have themselves produced
aud cool the contiguous strata Of air by the
radiation of heat from their leafy appendix
ular organs "In the serene and long
nights of the equinoctial zone, the fores
| air. which is contained In the interstices be-
tween the strata of leaves, becomes cooled
By the process of radiation; for a tree, a
horizc Ital section of whose summit would
hardly measure 1000 square feet, would ia
consequence of the greater number of its
appendicular organs (tbe leaves). produce
as great diminution in the temperature oil
the air as q space of bare land or turf many
thousand times greater than 1900 square
| feet - .... --
Mr.. Olmsted, in his Journey through
Texas" mentions many important facts
bearing on this eubject.~
In some of the older settled counties Of
Texas, where forests have been allowed 10
grow (by protecting fields from cattle and
fires }, springs of fine water have burst
forth from the ground; the streams are nc
longer subject TO freshets in spring. nor lia-
bic TO be dried up in summer. Fever and
ague, he states, has almost entirely disap-
peared from those districts.
/: has been ascertained that ''the greater
the extremes of heat and cold, the greater
will be the effect produced upon the climate
| By Forests Schneider. the botanist, says
that Iceland. now barren, g. AIRED the cul-
lure of grain until her forests disappeared
that parts of Egypt. Syria and Persia. onoe
famous for their fertility. are now made des-
erts by the absence Of trees; 1.-The streams
which iraversed those countries when they
were thickly wooded. are BOW dried up OF
shruuk within narrow bounds. With che
destruction of trees. man alters greatly the
natural conditions of country" Another
authority says. of Greece. that many Eal
| leys have been rendered barren By the Jose
Of the woods
Il is generally admitted that those regions
suffer most from heat, coll and drouth,
which are last covered with timber-snd
the cold in Iowa and fhe droutb in Kansas,
are forcible illustrations of the fact Son
Oini, Distinguished French naturalist, said
Of abe island Ct Cyprus: -
"Rain here i very rare in this SESSION,