The union Democrat., 1870-03-19

ees-1A0w Deserts arc Produeed
lam not at all sentimental--muoh less
spooney-regarding the destruction Of trees.
Descended from several generations OF timber
cutters lfor my paternal ancestors came to
America in l640) and myself engaged for
three years in land clearing, realize tha,
trees exist for use rather than for ornament,
and bave no more scruple as to cutting TIM
Der 10 forest than as to cutting grass IN a
meadow. Utility is the reason and end of all
vegetable growth-of hickory's no less than
cornstalk's. | have always considered
Woodman, Spare that Tree, jus. about the
most mawkish bit Of badly versiied prose in
our language, and never could guess how ii
should touch the sensibilities of any one.
Understand, then, that urge the planting
OF trees mainly because believe il will pay,
and the preservation, improvement and ex-
tension of forests. for precisely that reason.
Yet i am not insensible 10 the beauty and
grace lent by woods, and groves, and clumps
ar rows of trees, TO the landscape they divers
ify. | feel the force of Emerson 8 averment.
that "Beauty is its own excuse for being, y
and know that homestead embowered in,
belted by stately, graceful elms, naples,
and evergreens is really worth more, and will
sell for more, than if it were naked field and
meadow. | consider it one positive a1yan-
taee Ito balance many disadvantages) Of our
rocky, hilly, rugged Eastern country. that it
will never, in all probability, be so denuded
Of forests as the rich. facile praires and
s~ales 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 rap
idly. defying eradication as throughout New
England ami on either slope of the Allegha-
nies, and this profuson of timber and foliage
may we'll 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 ax, or plow, or scythe,
and TO cross running water every half mile
of summers days journey, may well be
made homesick, by 1000 miles of naked,
dusty, wird-swept Plains, whereon he finds
no water for so to 100 miles, and knows it is
impossible to cut an ax-helve, much more an
axletree, in the course Of a wearying journey.
No Eastern farmer ever realized the blessed.
mesa Of abundant and excellent wood and wa
ter until be had wandered far from his boy
hoods home.
No one may yet be able fully to explain the
inter-dependence Of these two blessings but
the fact remains. All over 'the Plains, !"
there is evidence that trees grew and -four
irhed 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 in the bed of what
had once been q considerable river, but in
which it was evident that no water had flow
cd for years. And have heard that since
the Mormons have planted trees over consid
cradle sections Of Utah, rains III summer are
no longer rare, and Salt Lake evinces. by a
constant 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 oil the great des
erts of the temperate and torr,d zones will
yet be reclaimed by irrigation and tree plant
ing. The bill which Congress did not pass
nor really consider, whereby it was proposed
some years since, to give section of the
woodless public lands, remote from settle
ment, TO every one who, in separate town
ship, would plant and cherish quarter sec
tion of choice forest trees, ought to have been
passed--with notifications, perhaps, but
preserving the central idea. Had ten thou.
sand quarter sections, in so many different
townships Of the plains, been thus planted tC
timber ten or twenty years ago. and protect
ed from fire and devastation till now, the val
ne Of those 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 oul
own State. One who has hundred acres OF
good soil, whereof twenty or thirty are wood
cd, cuts of his timber entirely, calculating
that the additional grass he may grow in its
stead will pay for all the coal he needs fol
fuel, 80 that he will make net gain of the
time he has hitherto devoted each winter e
cutting and hauling wood. lie does not
consider how much his soil will lose in sum
mer moisture; how his spring and runnels
will be dried up nor how the sweep of harsh
winds will be intensified by barring bic hill
tops and raviues to sun and breeze so utterly.
In my deliberate judgment farm of 100
acres will yield, with far greater uniformity
Of product from year to year, if twenty acres
Of i.s ridge-crest, ravine-sides and rocky
mit be swept clean of trees and all devoted
10 graes. Hence insist that the farmer who
sweeps off his wood and resolves to depend on
coal for fuel, hoping to increase permanently
the product of his dairy, makes a sad miscal-
culaticn.
Spain. Italy and portions of France are
now suffering from the improvidence that de-
vonred their forests. leaving the future to
take care Of itself. presume the great en-
p'res OF antiquity suffered from the same folly.
though to much greater extent. The re-
mains OF the now extinct races, who formerly
pecpled and filled the central valleys of this
continent, and especially the Territory of
Arisona probably bear witness to a similar
recklessness, which is paralleled by our
fathers and our own determination Of the
magnificent forests Of white pine which bare
~ century ago, covered so large a portion
OF the coil of our Northern States. Vermont
sold white pine ahundantly to England.
through Canada, within my dcy. She is now
Supplying her own wants from Canada at n
coat OF not less than five times the price she
cold for and she will be paying still higher
rates before the close of this century, l entreat
cur farmers not to preserve every tree. GOOD,
bad or Indifferent, that may happen 10 be
growing on their lands-bu., outside of tbs