Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1872-05-27
OUR FOREST TREES.

of timber to meet the actual necessities
OF life will be met with smile of incre-
dulity, or an emphatic denial on the
part of nine out of ten of even we'll in
formed men, who will refer TO the al
most illimitable forests of the Northern
States or to the immense lumber regions
of Pennsylvania and Virginia, as if that
We're sufficient answer, without need of
words. Notwithstanding the statement
IS so well founded, and on facts that
every day are becoming more apparent,
that the serious consideration of the SUBJ
ject, not only by people, but by the Gov
eminent, is urgently demanded, year by
year miles Of forest are leveled and clear
ed, and woods which have required
hundred years to grow are swept away,
while nothing is done either by public
authority or private zeal to supply the
place of that which exists. Nor is this
destruction of the timber growth confn-
ed to the demands made by the necessi-
ties of progress. The terrible fires
which have occurred within the past few
years in the great forests of the Middle
and Western states have devastated
hundreds of square miles of timber, at
direct loss of millions Of dollars and an
indirect loss too great to be computed.
Even now vast fires are raging in the
forests of New York, Pennsylvania and
Michigan, with no hope or prospects of
extinguishment except from rain.
In a recent speech in Congress ON
this subject, Hon. Richard J. Haldeman,
of Pennsylvania, took the ground that,
in order to counteract the evils conse-
quent on the destruction of forests, steps
should be taken to re-plant portions of
the denuded territory. Bacquerel, in
his work on Climate, says humid air
charged with miasmatic vapors is de-
prived of them while passing through
the forests. The foliage of the trees ex-
erts chemical effect on the atmosphere.
The vast swamps of Virginia and the
Carolinas, so long as the native woods
remain, are salubrious, but when strip
ped of trees, they become deadly and
unwholesome. Lieut.. Maury went so
far as to say that little thicket of SUM-
flowers, with their dense foliage, plant
ed between the Washington Observatory
and the marshy banks of the Potomac,
had the effect of warding off the inter-
mittent fever, to which the officers of
the Observatory used to be subject. And
it is well known fact that sunfower
plantations have been made in the nox-
ious Italian marshes with favorable re-
suits to the health of the neighborhood
Again, the fall of rain is largely infu-
enced by forests. Basinet, in his work
on The Science of Observation, says
ga few years ago it never rained in
Egypt The constant north winds pass
ed without obstruction over surface
bare of vegetation. But, since the
planting of large forests, an obstacle
has been interposed to the current of air
from the north The air thus checked
accumulates, dilates, cools, and yields
rain. The forests of the Vosges and
Ardennes produce the same effects in the
northeast of France, and sends us a
great river, Meuse, which is as remarka-
BILE for its volume as for the small extent
of its BASIN" In upper Egypt, in the
vicinity of Cairo and Alexandria, rain
formerly. seldom fell. Since the plant
ing of the forests by Mehemet, Ali and
Ibrahim Pacha, showers have become
frequent, and at Cairo the fall of rain
is copious during the winter months
The health of the locality is greatly i'm.
proved, and certain climatic diseases
once very prevalent, have almost entire.
ly disappeared.
Mr. Ha}deman, in the speech t.
which we made reference, thus sums w
the prominent causes of the demand OF
timber wealth of tie country: '.Twen
ty million people are living in DWELLING
chiefly made of wood the fencing o.
farms, more expensive than their othel
: improvements, is of wood: and all these
are perishable with time. Moreover
our sixty thousand miles of railroad
consume annually immense quantities O
e timber. Twenty-one thousand six hun
: bred cords of wood are daily consumed
in running railway trains, three hundred
{ and twenty thousand miles each twenty
. four hours. Sixty thousand miles o
road require twenty-five hundred ties t.
the mile; and as they must be re
placed every five years, an annual con
y sumption Of thirty million ties is requir
e ed. We shall soon construct each yea
: ten thousand miles of new road, requir
u ing twenty-five million more ties, an
e when we add to all these sources of fol-
, est destruction the wood required in tn
e fencing of these railroads, the half mil
e lion telegraph poles which each yea
IS will be required, and the vast amount c
y destruction of forest by food and fire
/ we must be absolutely startled with tn
g conviction that we are nearing the en-
/ of our supply"