Connecticut western news., 1873-07-18
DrOughts and Forests.

DrOughts and Forests.
 Year after year the farmers in certain
 sections of the country become more
 clamorous in their complaints of injury
 done to their crops by ong-continued
 droughts, and superstitious rural con-
 gregations, persisting in attributing to
 a mysterious special providence the
 natural results of mans own mischiev-
 ous action, periodically test the efficacy
 of prayer to dissiver effect from cause,
 and practically believe their avowed
 faith in the Almighty's wisdom by be-
 seeching him to alter his seeming inten-
 tion, and reminding him that in their
 opinion it is time to send down, by
 some miraculous intervention, the rain
 which they have done and are doing
 their utmost to avert.
 The modern bucolic Tityrus, too
 active to recline under the shade of
 patulous beeches, may have unbeliev-
 ingly heard, in a general way, of some
 supposed relation between foliage and
 rainfall ; it may even have happened to 1 him to read in his country newspaper
 how folks say that in foreign parts | sandy deserts which were arid for cen turies past have been visited by showers since trees have been made to grow there. But neither he nor even his
 better-informed urban cousin, perhaps, has any distinct idea of how and why foliage influences climatic conditions. The action of dense masses of vegeta- tion in tempering and retarding the rapidity of winds, and their mechanical service as screens against miasmatic emanations, may be readily understood, and such mechanical action alone may serve to explain why the absence or destruction of forests tends to render the winter seasons more severe and the summers hotter and dryer; but they exercise more recondite and more po- tent functions than these as regards both comfort and health. In the first place, as every educated reader knows, trees through their respiratory organs acid gas constantly exhaled from animal lungs, assimilating the carbon and re- leasing the oxygen to resume it's vivify- Secondly, they favor the penetration and retention of moisture in the soil, their shade preventing too rapid 'evap- oration by partially excluding to suns rays. For this reason, whilst woodlands under civilized supervision are condu- cive to health, wild forest 'growths where the oversaturated soil is cumbered with underbrush may give rise to malarial emanations. But, beyond this, foliage, has a more direct power of condensing moisture from the atmosphere. The leaves of an averagefo forest tree conioint- ly present a surface of something more than half an acre, and the temperature of this great surface is kept below that of the surrounding air, not only by the continual process of vegetable evap- oration," but by radiation of heat when the suns rays are withdrawn. Hence the strata of air intruded between the leaves are cooled 80 quickly as to part with portion of their moisture, pitcher receives depoisit of dew from the surrounding atmosphere.
 The process of distillation, while serving to some extent to prevent ex- tensive torrents of rain by keeping the atmosphere from becoming overloaded with vapor of water, also serves to main tain constant and gentle supply to brooks and smaller water-courses, es- peclally where forests exist in elevated | situations. It is not, therefore, by
 GudU trees a1- | feet the local conditions of moisture. but by their more remote agency in sus- taining the sources of water supply. | The actual amount of rainfall is, of | course, proportionate to the absolute quantity of water contained in the att being, as 8 rule, greatest at the equator, and diminishing towards the poles; and Prof. Henry has suc- ceeded in tracing the origin and course of the different rain-bearing currents which respectively supply various sec bions of the United States. But, apart from such general phenomena, there are local factors which exert an essen- 5ial modifying power, and not the least important of these is the growth of for est foliage, the destruction of which over large tracts of country is inevita- ply followed by drought and sickness. To sum up Trees purify the air of car oon with which our breathing vitiates 1t; they protect us from miasmatic poi son, not only by acting as screens, but oy dissolving it Tn the water which they listil they save us from extremes of temperature, and secure for us equable 1ygrometric conditions. And of all 5hese advantages we have for years past been trying to deprive ourselves through our national mania for clearing" wild ands, until now it is almost too late to repair the damage done.