News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1883-01-04
TERMS $3.50.
WOODMAN, SPARE THE TREE.
The Climatic Value of FOrests-Why They
should be Kept Intact.
from the New York Herald. ]

From the New York Herald
Ina valuable paper before an agricul
| tUral meeting at Northampton, Mass.
Prof. G. S. Sargent pointed out the vas
losses to the country annually by fores
fires. The strongest point in his paper
on the permanent damage done by
these fires-is that they "destroy not
only the growing wood, but the fertility
of the soil itself" As this is the season
for legislation it is timely to press on
Legislators the necessity for revising eX-
isting enactments to better secure the
wasted forests from the wholesale con-
dagrations to which they are every yeaI
exposed In a recent article Professor
Sargent takes the ground that 'forests
do not produce rain; rain produces the
forests, and without a certain amount of
rain they cannot exist" Rainfall may
not be directly produced in large guam
titles by the condensation of atmospheric
moisture caused by the cloud-chilling
Forest but the indirect agency of the
timbered land in augmenting the supply
of rainfall which permeates the soil and
becomes agriculturally beneficial is cer-
tainly very considerable. The addition
of single inch of rainfall to the amount
which penetrat9s the soil instead Of rum
ming off is on every acre over twenty-five
thousand five hundred gallons.
But there is another effect of forests
which is generally overlooked even by
scientists in discussing their physical
Importance. In historic times marked
climatic changes have occurred in Eu-
rope and America which can be explained
only by the progress of continental defor-
esting. The able British physicist Ad-
miral Smyth, in his work ON the physical
geography of the mediterranean basin,
clearly shows that great climatic changes
have taken place. The effects of intense
winter cold in Italy, Greece and Asia
Minor, recorded by ancient writer's, he
notes, "have been in later ages un-
known" In this country it is doubtful
whether we will ever have as cold win
ters as that of 1880, when the Chesa.
peake Bay " was frozen solid, according
to Mr.. Jefferson, from its head to the
mouth of the Potomac" and Washing
toms troops securely crossed on solid ice
from New Jersey to Staten Island. Max
ing due allowance for historical inaccu-
racies it seems clear that while the cold
spells of late years have been as intense
as those of 1880 and 1856 their duration
has not been so protracted. Forests, of
course, protect the soil from rapid radia-
ton of its heat and from the frigOritic
downward currents of the great "cOld
waves"
But they must also materially retard
the passage of these ''polar waves" and
serve to detain them longer on the con-
tinent than would be the case were the
soil cleared. The removal of the forests
by the spread Of civilization and con-
faqratiOns thus exposes the soil to III
creased fluctuations of abnormal cold
and heat and enables the heavy mas5e.
of cold air 70 rpu over it with create
velocity to the sea. We may congratu
late ourselves ON the latter effect Of sot
danudation, and it probably glves u
winters of higher mean temperature tha
our ancestors had. But it is not in
probable future investigation will dem
onstrate that while we thus gain ''milde
winters" the precipitation of winter an
spring is reduced and the agriculture
seasons open with disastrous droughts
For it is seen that exceptionally milC
winters, like those of 1S77-78, 1879-S
and 1SS1-S2, have been marked with de
ticiencies of winter rainfall and by wide
spread droughts, with forest fires anc
army worm i11vasions in the succeeding
spring months, the aridity sometimes eX
tending far into summer. 1t is to be
hoped, therefore, that during the com
ing winter the preservation of forests
will be made a matter of more effective
and intelligent legislation than has ye
been devised