The Osceola times., 1883-06-23
ARB0RICULTuRE.
How Timber viii he Cared For In The
Twentieth Century.

Felix l. Oswald in Cincinnati Enquirer
The Simia destructor, as Camper pro-
posed TO call the tree-felling bipcd, will
become a reconstructor. The work of
repair will begin, and it il probable that
it will begin in the United States. The
starving farmer of the old world tales
refuge in the emigration Office, but when
all the prairies of the far west shall have
been turned into wheat fields, all the
southern woodlands into cotton planta-
tions. when all the available land from
Maine to California shall produce its ut
most, and yet insufficient crops, the ne.
cessity of the "hic aut nusquam" will te
brought home to the nonplussed cultiva.
tor and lead to the recognition of the
remedy. Silvi-culture might treble the
agricultural value Of arid soil, but that
truth will never become patent till it is
too late to wait for the generative effect
of slow-growing forest-trees, and until
the needs of the dense population leave
no room for timber nurseries. The pro-
ductiveness Of the soil has to be improv-
ed by its own crops. There will be no
time TO wait for bagful Of acorns to pro-
duce a forest of rain-attracting oaks, anu
the necessitous farmer will cultivate
trees that promise to yield both direct
and eventual profits, and fill his store
house as well as his grandson's rain-bar-
rel-Caron-beans, chestnuts, apple-trees,
olive and sugar-pears. He will begin
with the old fields that have ceased TO
produce anything else; for even where
aridity has already far advanced it is ca
sier to keep a tree alive than crop Of
thirsty cereals. After the trees begin TO
bear, field after field can be Withdrawn
of better land from the acreage of the
ANIMALS, till it becomes safe to rely en-
tirely upon the produce of the perennial
plants, which will both increase the
profits and lessen the toll Of busbandry.
The success of the first tree farmer
will soon induce Others to follow his ex-
ample; natural selection will do more
| than scientific lectures, and every famine
will increase the area of perennial plan
tations. In the United States the Pacific
slope will monopolize the olive-gardens,
and the south the culture of bread-stuff
trees. The Alleghenies will become the
great orchard region, AMI the wilds of
the northern frontier a timber planta-
| ton. Timber trees will be carefully cul-
| tivatcd, but for furniture purposes rather
| than for building; at the end Of
| the twentieth century few people will be
able to afford wooden-aouses. Artificial
stone. compressed bv some hydraulic
process, will probably supercede all 9TH
er kinds of building material except
adobe, for tile bricks require fuel, and
the age of steam will keep up the price
Of coal.
Our children will "see some wondrous
engines spinning" The exigencies of
fierce struggle for existence vii, stimu-
late an ultra Yankee genius of construc-
tiveness. Huge, complicated and yet al
most automatic machines will turn ont
artificial wood and artificial leather,
zinc-like compositions, as plant rs rub
| ber-cloth, and greatly improved kinds Of
annealed glass. The competitive ten
/ dencies of a utilitarian revival will do
away with the condemnable attenuation
of textile fabrics; our Grandchildren, like
our ancestors, will make coats that will
stand the wear and tear of a lifetime,
and stockings that can be washed with
out illustrating the correlation of sorrow
and holiness.
The last remnants Of our woodlands
will be guarded like national paladia.
L Thara "a i'll ha natia,a1
mountain range. Every county will
have public forester or superintendent
of tree-nurseries. All public highways
Will be lined with a double row Of shade
trees, worn out fields will be planted
with hardy fruit trees, sand-fibs, or. as a
last resort, mesquites and locusts. and
the municipal authorities will employ
all legal means to enlarge such planta-
tons; premiums immunity from public
duties, and stringent protective laws
Private owners of large mountain forests
will hold them in fee simple of the ma
| ton, and will be held to observe the
conditions of that forest as strictly as the
proPrietors of the Swiss Bann-walder. or
bulwark-woods that protect the noun
/ tain hamlet from the fall of the ava
lanches The larger municipal forests
VIII become national parks, and the
Oberlins Of the new world will vie in
/ popularlzlng their attractions bv the adj
dition of fountains, benches, swings, etc,
and the introduction of European sing
/ ing birds.
The practical common sense of the
| Anglo-Amcrican farmer will sooner or la
ter recognize the trutl that in an agri-
cultural country the preservation or de-
structlon OF forests must determine the
decision Of llamlet's alternative. Iftheir
southern neighbors should not follow
their example, if Central America should
become as barren as the plains of Labra-
dor, the territory of the United States
will form the oasis of the American des-
ert, for the physical geography of the old
world shows that isolated woodlands en-
JOY climate of their own. The forests
OF Mingrelia, the ancient Cholsis, in the
eastern Caucasus, though surrounded bv
Russian steppes and Armenian sandhills
are still as fertile as in the days of the
Argonauts The wooded oasis of Sidi-
Belbez, IN southern Algicrs, enioys fre-
quent rain showers, while in the ada
cent plains the annual rainfall does not
| exceed four inches
MoraIiti.s