The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1865-07-07
The Effect Of stripping Country OF
- its Trees. - -r

From the N. z. Evening Post t.s.,
The summer heats are beginning to dry
up the springs and brooks which were
lately 80 full and noisy, and the attention
ofobserving people is again turned to the
fact of the diminution, year by year, Of
the quantity of water in our streams at
certain seasons, in consequence of strip
ing the country of it's trees, and convert
ing the forests into pastures and titled
fields. Almost everywhere our rivulets
and rivers show, by certain indications in
their channels, that they once flowed to-
wards the sea with larger current than
now. If we go on as we now do, we shall
at length see many of our ancient water
courses as nearly obliterated as Addison
found them in Italy, when he wrote: sn
Sometimes misguided by the tuneful throng,
/ look for streams immortalized in song.
That lost in silence and oblivion lie,
Dumb are their fountains and their channels
Yet run forever, by the Muses. skin,
Andin the smooth description murmur still
This denuding country of it's trees has
made the rivers of Spain for the most part
mere channels for the winter rains. The
Guadalquivir, which some poet calls q
mighty river" enters the sea at Malaga
without water enough to cover the loose
black stones that pave it's bed. The Holy
Land now often misses the slater rain, .
OF receives it but sparingly, and the brook
Kedron is 9 long dry ravine passing of to
the eastward from Jerusalem to descend
between perpendicular walls beside the
monastery Of Mar Saba to the valley OF
the Jordan and the Dead Sea. Mr. Marsh,
in his very instructive book entitled q Man
and Nature, has collected vast number
Of instances showing how, in the old world,
the destruction Of the forests has been fol-
lowed by q general aridity of the country
which they formerly overshsdowed.
Whether there are any examples Of fire.
quent rains restored to q country BY plant
ing groves and orchards, we cannot say :
but we remember, when travelling at the
West thirty-three years since, to have met
with gentleman from Kentucky, who
spoke of an instance within his knowledge
in which perennial stream had made its
appearance where at the early settlement OF
the region there was none. Kentucky,
when its first colonists planted themselves
within its limits, was region in which ex-
tensive prairies, burnt over every year by
the Indians, predominated.
More than forty years since poet of
our country, referring to the effect OF
stripping the soil Of its trees, put these
lines into the mouth of one of the aboriai-
nal inhabitants
Before these fields were shorn and titled.
Full to the brim our rivers flowed:
The melody of waters filed
The fresh and boundless wood;
And torrents dashed and rivulets played,
And fountains spouted In the shade.
Those grateful sounds are heard no more:
The springs are silent in the sun;
The rivers BY the blackened shore
With lessening current run.
The realm our tribes are crushed to get
May be barren desert yet
The causes which operate to make the
rains more frequent and the springs more
regularly full in well-wooded country are
probably more than one. Under the trees
of forest covering of fallen leaves Is
spread over the ground, by which the rains
are absorbed and gradually given out to
the springs and rivulets. The trees also
take up large quantities of this moisture
in the ground, and give it out to the air in
the form of vapor, which afterwards con-
denses into clouds and falls in showers.
All the SHOWS, likewise, that fall in forests
are more slowly melted, and sink mofe
gradually and certainly into the earth t6an
when they fall on the open fields. On the
other hand, the rains that fall in an un-
wooded region run off rapidly blythe wa
ter courses, and that portion Of them
which should be reserved for adry season
is lost.