The Newtown bee., 1879-03-11
grade to again begin to ascend, and f persevered in will surely make headway against what would otherwise look doubtful.-Mdine Farmer.
The Preservation of Forests.

The Preservation or fOrestS.
 In an article with the above title in the North American RcvieO. Felix l.. Os- wald, after reviewing the disastrous ef- fects which have followed the wholesale destruction of forests in various coun- tries of the world, remarks that since the year 1885 the forest area of the Western hemisphere has decreased at the average yearly rate of 7,600, 900 acres, or about Il, 400 square miles; in the United States alone this rate has advanced from 1.600 square miles in 1885 to 1000 in 1855, and 8, 400 in 1876, Between 1750 and 1885 the total aggre- gate of forests felled in South and Gen. tral America (especially in Southwestern Mexico), and in the Eastern, Southern and Southwestern States of our republic, may be estimated at from 45, 900, GOO to 90, GOO, ,000 acres. In other words, we have been wasting the moisture supply of the American soil at the average ratio of seven per cent. for each quarter of Q century during the last one hundred and twenty-five years, and are now fast approaching the limit beyond which any further decrease will affect the climatic phenomena of the entire continent.
 If we consider how the agricultural products of the eastern continents be- come from year to year mora inadequate to the wants of their still-growing popu- lation, we may forsee tho time when the hope of the world will depend upon the productiveness of the American soil ; but that productiveness depends on the fertilizing influence of the American forests. If they are gone we shall have on earth no newer world to hope for no future Columbus can alleviate the struggle for existence. To stay such a catastrophe the author suggests that in every township, where the disappear ance of arboreal vegetation begins to af- feet the perennial springs and water courses or the fertility of the fields, a space of fifty acres should be appropri ated for township grove." en oasis to be consecrated forever to shade trees, birds nests, picnics and playing chil dren. In all new settlements, where 6 remnant of the primeval forests has sur vived, let the woods on the upper ridges or on the summits of isolated hills be spared by mutual agreement of the pro prietors. In the treeless regions of the great West not only the amateur socie- ties, but every grange and farmers union of every county, should devote themselves to the work of tree culture and every landed proprietor should sec to it that the boundaries of his estates be set with shade trees, and that the wooden fences be supplanted by quick set hedges. Let fruit trees be planted wherever there is a piece of ground neither otherwise occupied nor absolute ly barren: and be sure that their infiu- ence on the atmosphere in summer and their fertilizing leaves in fall will more than indemnify the adjoining fields fol the modicum of sunlight they may in tercept. Any State where these pre- cautions should be generally adopted would soon be so unmistakably distin- guished by the unfailing humidity and freshness of it's fields and the abundance of its crops, that the sheer necessity oi competition would induce backward neighbors to try the experiment. and be- fore long the maxim would not only be generally recognized, but generally act ed upon, that husbandry and tree cal
 ture ara inseparabls.-Scientifc Amer joan.