The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1875-07-17
Forest Conseryanoy in New York.

The session at Albany cannot endure much longer,
and public attention is 50 much absorbed in the in
Yestigation of the canal frauds and the bills intro
duced % enable the Executive to exercise more eff
cient control over departments of the administration,
that there is reason to fear that several measures of
real utility will either share the fate of the innocents
or receive such summary consideration as will seri-
ously impair their value. The subject that forms the
caption of this article is one, unfortunately, which is
not likely to enlist much sympathy among the mere
politicians in the legislature, nor to receive that pres
sure from influential classes outside of the Capitol,
without one or the other of which it is improbable
that any serious measures will be adopted at this adj
vanced period of the session. Nevertheless a bill
concerning il, which was introduced by Senator
McGowan in the early part of the last month, should
commend itself to the energetic support of every en-
lightened legislator, and we venture to affirm that the
present is n particularly suspicious time for legislat4
ing on the subject.
The object Of the proposed act is to provide for the
appointment of a Commissioner Of Forestry, 9 Sho
has given special attention to the subject of forestry
in its HISTORICAL, scientific and practical BEARINGS
and whose duties shall be 90 to investigate the subject
of the timber supply within the state, the most ep-
proved methods Of timber cultivation in foreign
countries, and the various scientific and practical
questions dependent on this subject" The Importance
of these latter have long since engaged the anxious
attention of European governments, aud it is not to
our credit that hitherto they have been overlooked on
IllS Sue y II AtlduliC. NJ SEtaltT idllaCy COulu DC
INDUCED in than to class this among purely CONNER
cial questions, having no higher bearing than the
maintenance of a sufficient supply Of wood for trade
purposes; though if it occupied no loftier ground we
contend that it still would deserve the solicitude of
the legislature. The preservation of a due proportion
Of forest lands in a country is, however, q matter of
greater moment; it signifies nothing less than the
preservation Of the arabic or ood-prOducing soil it
self. This fact is 50 well established, and, indeed, so
patent TO all who possess any experience Of agrieul-
turll pursuits. that it would be superfuous to argue
upon it in detail, and yet how few landowners reflect
that, by clearing away all their timber trees, they
are drying up springs, depriying the earth of those
natural cOndeusers which collect the moisture of the
atmosphere, exposing the soil of hill aud mountain
to be washed away, preparing sources fox those rapid
torrents that carry destruction with them, and, finally,
rendering the process Of evaporation so rapid as to
lead to the eventual sterility of the most favored re-
gions. Hitherto the vast area of virgin soil still I'M
touched in this country has rendered these evil con-
sequences almost imperceptible, except in scattered
instances; but settlers are advancing, and forests are
diminishing, and who can faretell what the conse-