Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1870-04-01
farm, Garden s Joilsfh0la.
From the New York Tribune.
WHAT / KNOW OF FARMING.
ny HORACE GREELEY.
vIL-Trees-W -Woad-Land Forests.

ber cutters tfor my parental ancestors came
to America in l6401 and myself engaged for
three years in land clearing. realize that
trees exist for use rather than for ornament,
and have no more scTuple as to cntting tim
ber in forest than as to cutting grass in q
meadow. Utility is the reason and end ot
ali vegetable growth-of hiekory's no less
than a cornstalk's, ! have always considered
.'Woodman, spare that tree,' just about the
most mawkisb bit of badly yersfed prose in
our language. and never could guess how i
should touch the sensibilides Of any one.
Understand, then, that urge the planting OF
trees mainly because believe it viii pay, and
the preservation, improvement, and extension
OF foiss.s, for precisely that reason.
YesI am not insensible to the beauty and
grace lent by woods and groves, and elumps
or rows of trees, 30 the landscape they diEer-
sify. | feel the force Of Emerson's averment,
that Beauty is its own excuse for being,
and know that homestead embowered IN,
belted by, stately, graceful elms, naples, and
eTergreens, lis really ,ooyfh more, aud viii
sell for more, than If it were naked field and
meadow. I consider It one positive adyan-
tage Ito balance many disadvantages Of our
rocky, hilly, rugged Eastern country, that it
will never, in all probability, be so dennded
Of forests as the rich, facile prairies and
swales Of the Great Valley may be. Our
winds are less piercing, our tornadoes less
destructive, than those of the Great West.
doubt whether there is another equal area OF
the earth S surface whereon so many kinds Of
valuable trees grow spontaneously and rapid
ly, defying eradication, as throughout New
England aud on either slole of the Alleghe-
nies, and this profusion of timber aud foliage
may well atone for, or may be fairly weighed
against, many deficiencies and drawbacks.
The Yankee, who has, been accustomed to
see trees spring up spontaneously wherever
they were not kept down by ak, or plow, or
scythe, and to cross running water every half
mile Of Summer days journey, may well be
made homesick, by two thousand miles Of
naked, dusty, wind-swept Plains, whereon
he finds no water for fifty to a hundred miles,
and knows 1t impossible to cut an axe-helye,
much more an axle-tree, in the coE?se Of a
wearying journey. No eastern farmer ever
realized the blessedness Of abundant aad ex-
cellent wood and water until he had wander.
ed far from his boyhood's home.
No one may yet be able fully to explain
the interdependence Of these two blessings:
but the fact remains. All over 'the Plains -
there is evidence that trees grew and flourish
cd where none are now found, and that
springs and streams were then frequent and
abiding where none now exist. A prominent
citizen of Nevada, who explored southwark
from Austin to the Colorado, assured me
that his party travelled for days 10 the bed Of
what had once been a considerable river, but
in which II was evident that no water had
flowed for years. And heard that, since the
Mormons have planted trees over eonsidefa.
bic sections of [ tab, rains in Summer are no
longer rare, and Salt Lake evinces, by con-
slant though moderate increase of her vol.
ume Of waters, that the equilibrium Of rain,
fall with evaporation in the Great Basin has
been fully restored-or rather, that the rain
fall is now taking the lead
have firm faith that all the great deserts
Of the Temperate anu Torrid Zones will yet
be reclaimed by irrigation and tree-plantipg.
The bill which Congress did not pass, nor
really consider, whereby it was proposed,
some years since, to give a section Of the
woodless Public Lands remote from settle
ment to every one who, in a separate town.
ship, would plant and cherish quarter. sec.
ton Of choice forest-trees, ought to have been
passed-with notifications, perhaps, but pre-
serving the central idea. Had ten thousand
quarter sections, in so many different town
ship of the Plains, been thus planted to tim
Der ten TO twenty years ago, and protected
from fire and devastation till now, the value
ofthose Plains for settlement would have been
nearly or quite doubled.
a capital mistake, it seems to me, is being
made by some Of the dairy farmers Of our
own State. One who has hundred acres of
good soil, whereof twenty or thirty are
wooded, cuts of his timber entirely, calcula.
ting that the additional grass that he may
grow in its stead viii pay for all the coal be
needs for fuel, so that he will make a net gain
Of the time he has hitherto devoted each
Winter to cutting aud hauling wood He
does not consider how much this soil will lose
IN Summer moisture how bis springs and
ruunels will be dried up, nor how the sweep
Of harsh winds viii be intensified, by barring
his hill-tops and rayines 70 sun and breeze so
utterly. In my deliberate judgement, a farm
Of one hundred acres will yield more
feed, with far greater uniformity of product
from year to year, if twenty acres Of its ridge
crest, rayine- sides, and rocky places. are
thickly covered with timber, than if it be
swept clean Of trees and all devoted TO grass.
Hence, | insist that the farmer who sweeps
of his wood aud resolves to depend on coal
for fuel, hoping to increase permanently the
product Of his dairy, makes sad miscalcula.
ton
Spain, Italy, and portions Of France, are
now suffering from the improvidenee that de.
voured their forests ,leaving the future to take
care OF ITSELF presume the great empires
OF antiquity suffered from the same folly.
though to much greater extent The re.
mains OF now extinct races who formerly peo.
pied and tiled the central valleys Of this con
tinent, and especially the Territory of
Arizona, probably bear witness to similar
>recklessness, which is paraneed by our
fathers and our own determination Of The
magnificent forests Of White Pine which
barely a century ago, covered so large a por.
ton Of the soil Of our Northern States. YER
mont sold White Pine abundanty to England
through Canada within my day: she is now
supplying her own wants from Canada at a
cost of not less than Eve times the price she
sold for; and She will be paying still higher
rates before the close of this century. en-.
treat our farmers not to preserve everv tree.
good bad or indifferent, that NAV happen to
be growing on their lauds-but, outside Of
the limited districts wherein the primitive