The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-07-17
Spare the Trees.

we breathe, to exhale large quantities of
aqueous vapor, and, by so doing, to
modify both the temperature and the
dryness of that aerial ocean in which it
expands its foliage, to check the evapo-
ration of moisture from the soil, and to
promote the CONJUNCTION of water to it,
and thus to assist in the formation of
those subterranean springs which be-
come the sources of perennial streams
and majestic rivers.
When | say that q tree is rooted ami
NAL, do so advisedly. Its vital func-
tons are analogous to ours. The spon-
gioles at its roots select and absorb the
food which it draws from the soil, in
much the same way as that in which the
lacteals of the human stomach act this
food is converted into sap, or blood, and
its circulation is arterial and venous,
like our own. The tree breathes, as we
do, its leaves being its lungs; and the
process of respiration is effected by
means of the air-cells on the lower sur
face of the leaf, just as some insects
breathe through the pores of their skin
In the hydrangea there are as many as
sixteen thousand of these little air-holes
in every square inch of the leaf, and in
the yucca, or Adam s-needle, there are
no less than forty thousand in the same
space. Each of these inhales carbonic
acid, and exhales oxygen, just as we in
hale oxygen, and eXhale carbonic acid.
And living tree maintains uniformity
OF temperature, just as the human body
does. 1t has its hours of sleep, as we
have, and its period of growth, maturi-
ty, reproduction, and decay, as we
have.
AS an agent for the publication of
the atmosphere, the value of the tree is
incalculable. Professor Asa Gray,
speaking of the Washington elm, at
Cambridge, states that it is estimated to
have produced an annual crop of seven
millions of leaves, exposing a surface of
five acres of foliage to the air. And as
every inch of that foliage embraces
many thousands of respiratory tubes,
each necessarily engaged in giving off
oxygen so long as it is exposed to the
action of the light, we may imagine the
beneicent part which forest plays in
relation to the supply of the vivifying
principle for our own lungs and blood;
and we may also estimate what we suf-
fer, in the privation of it, by herding to-
gether in large cities, and breathing a
poisoned or deteriorated atmosphere.
The influence of the forest on the hui
Nudity of the air and the earth is due to
variety of causes. In the first place,
the tree, in respiration, while decom-
posing the carbonic acid, sets free a
certain quantity of vapor. Not only so,
but portion of the moisture which is
drawn up from the soil is given off by
cutaneous Transportation, in the same
way that vapor escapes from our bodies.
In the second place, by sheltering the
ground beneath them, shade trees pro-
tect it against solar irradiation. Third
ly, as Understanding to experiments
which have been made in Europe
maintain at all seasons constant mean
temperature of $40 Fahrenheit, the
vapor which is held in suspension by
the atmosphere, when the heat of this
is higher than that of the forest, coming
in contact with the latter, is condensed,
and falls in the shape of fine rain, or of
"drip." This is a phenomenon con-
stantly observable in wooded elevations,
like the Dandenong Ranges, for exam
pie, and those pure ice-cold springs,
which come leaping down the shaggy
slopes of the mountains, making sweet
music as they babble and gurgle, foam
and eddy, in the green twilight of the
lovely fern-tree cloister overhead, are
but the vapor floating in the air, trans
muted into sparkling runnels and stain
less cataracts by the action of the gi-
gantic eucalypti, which lift their lordly
heads with such majesty of mien above
the crest of those purple hills.
Strip the ranges of their crown of
glory, without replanting them, and
each stream and creek would forthwith
disappear. The winter rains would
wash every inch of surface soil off the
mountains: and then, when the bed
rock had been stripped quite naked, a
heavy fall of rain would rebound from
the impervious declivities into the cir
cumjacent valleys, and devastating in
undations would denude these of their
alluvium and sweep it into the sea. In
stead of green pastures and blooming
orchards, and fruitful vineyards and
pleasant gardens, you would see bare
and arid plain, treeless and waterless,
except in the winter, when a tropical
down-pour would fill the otherwise dry
beds of what are now permanent creeks
with turbulent torrents.
France, with other countries, has
more than once paid the penalty of this
wholesale destruction of timber. Hill
side forests were cut down; there was
nothing to arrest the rain, and to con-
duct it through mass of vegetable hui
mus into the sub soil, perforated and
rendered permeable by the reaching
roots of the trees, from whence it would
find its way into underground reser-
voirs, constituting the fountain-heads of
failing springs. And thus, when
the SHOWS melted, or when there was
heavy rain fall, floods of disastrous vio-
lence occurred. That of 1910, in the
valley of the Rhone, destroyed property
of the value of seventy-two millions of
francs. Those of 1916 occasioned a
loss of forty-five millions of francs; that
of May, 1856, laid million of acres,
including many towns aud villages, I'M
der water in the valley of the Loire
while in the valley of the Rhone its
effects are described as having been as
ooIo ,,o;touc a if tho uho1a oouptrxy bo Il