The bee., 1883-03-17
iS IiiPORTANT MATTER.
Influence Of Forests on Ciimafe--Creai
Floods Due to Absenre Of F"rrst---F or
tiliIy Increased by Trec PiRnt


tiliry Increased bv TreC PiHnt N.
People of civilized countries gener-
ally seem to be awaking to the i'm
portance the bearing forests have
upon human welfare In America the
various forestry associations have
within a few months given to the
world much valuable information upon
the subjects of forests, their influence
upon climate, the several modes of and
the imperative necessity for planting
new to take the place of old ones, and
many facts of interest about the ex-
tent of the injury which has been done
by the destruction of timber in tiiiS
and in other lands. The mt dis
eussion in Congress of the duty upon
lumber served to place before the pub
lie information new tn them i'll regard
to the rapid rate at which the most
valuable timber IN America is 'lisap-
pearing.
The subject is one which i rcctly
and largely concerns farmers. bec;Illse
upon them the effect of the destruction
of the forests falls first and most So
verely. Manufacturers are injured 'li
rectly and seriously only where they
must depend largely upon water for
power, or where large quantities OF
water are required otherwise IN their
work. But steam is in most
places almost as available as, ii
not even preferable to, wator-power,
and the manufacturer can therefore
manage to get along with small snp-
ply of water. The farmtr must have
water in abundance, and at the rrcpec
season, else he canno! carry on his
business successfully. There nolcnger
exists q reasonable doubt that the sup
ply Of water for agricultural purposes
depends largely upo1 the existence OF
forests. There are countrits--ike
Palestine, for example-which once
were fruitful gardens, whe:e T. Gense
population lived in comfort and lilx-
ury. They are DOW become bare and
sun-scorched wastes, where wild beasts
dispute with man the possession of the
poverty-stricken land. The Russians
burned large Transeausian forests in
their struggle with the Circassians,
and by so dning transformed the coun-
try from d fertile land into desert,
simply through The cutting off of rain.
Rain has deserted The MauritiI;s. Ja-
tt1aica, tho Azores, and several of the
smaller West India islands, because
they have bcen denuded of their for
ests. No sooner had these been
stripped of their forests than springs
and rivulets ceased to flow, the rain
fall became irregular, and even the de-
position of dew was almost entirely
checked. Young as it is, Our own
country furnishes proof enough to con-
vince the skeptical that evil effects re-
suit certainly from stripping the
land of its forests. The Ohio and
other valleys have been submerged
by floods which have swiftly
flowed down from the hills. where, had
the forests been preserv. d, the water
would have been absorbed by tie
leaves, the vegetable mold and the SOIL
which have b,co C dried and washed
away by successive freshets. That
water would have been retained as in
vast natural reservoir, to percolatr
slowly through, to form springs, riTu-
lets and rivers. New England is al
ternately flooded and parch .d; yet the
destruction of forests continues. In
the timbered West the land is not so
hi1ly, and therefore the erosion of tht
soil Is slight, as the water flows more
slowly, and greater quantity is ab-
sorbed by the soil.
The fertility of Egypt has been enor-
mouSly increased by tree planting.
Mehemet Ali planted some 2U,0O0,OOO
trees on the Delta, and his succe ;sorS
followed up the work. The result Ii
that the rainfall rose from six to forty
inches. In France and in Algiers ex-
tensive areas have been planted with
gums and other trees, and now the
quantity of dew and rain which falls
is double what it was formerly. In
this country the very general habit of
making houses, barns and other build
ings of wood, instead of using more
lasting brick and stone, has
greatly encouraged the wanton
waste of timber. This is especially
true of the West. The clearing of
lands for the plow has done even
more than lumbarmen have to change
| the climate and the face of the cOun-
try; for the lumbermen takes only the
larger trees, leaving the younger and
smaller ones to grow and protect the
ground. If this young growth coull
be preserved from spoliation, it would
in a few years become in itself more
valuable than the land upon which it
stands will be for crop-growing; and
it would, besides, have an indirect
value which cannot be easily estima-
ted, as the conservator of the conditions
which make profitable agriculture pos
sible.
In the evidently increasing interest
in forestry in America there exists
good reasons for believing that the
work of despoiling the forests will bt
checked, and the work of repairing
the injury already done will be fairly
begun, before this generation shall
have passed away. Upon the farmer:
the work of restoration " i'll fall; ant
the farmers will be the first to reap thC
reward. 1t is stated that from lant
planted to forest trees wisely selected
a better profit can be obtained from
the timber, and the crops which ma,
for time be grown on the ground be
tween the young trees, than can be 60
in any of the ordinary methods of crop
ping. How great the other benefits vii
be no man now living can tell.-Chi
eago Tribune.