News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1884-01-17
FOREST DESTRUCTION.
The Foolish Work Done in Monroe County
Pennsylvania.

Prof. Rogers, the State geologist of
Pennsylvania, reported officially, many
years ago, that the wealth of Monroe
county lay in its water powers, for it
had no metal and no coal, and was not
well adapted for agriculture. As mat
ter of fact, it is so i'll adapted for agricnl-
ture that few farmers, if any-and GER
tuinly no experienced or enterprising
ones-haye deliberately chosen it as
their homes. As yet, few have seen the
wealth which lay in its water powers,
and the balk and the timber which
probably first attracted settlers are still
the main sources of income We say
income, though we do not mean it for
we want to raise, right here, the ques-
ton as TO the radical difference between
principal and income.
The fact is that instead of living on
its income, Monroe county has been
recklessly sqUanderering its principal.
The water powers of the county, prop
erIy used and cared for, would be prin-
cipal which yielded ceaseless income.
for they would never cease to flow. But
proper care of the water powers means
proper care of the timber but from one
end of the county TO the other we see
the most reckless destruction of timber.
White oak and hickory are hauled
days journey and sold for spokes at a
price which barely pays for the hauling
alone. Railroad ties by the hundred
thousand lie piled at our stations. The
poplar and other soft woods are disap-
pearing III pulp. Shoe pegs and clothes
iins take Off their myriad of trees, and the
birch melts In oil distilleries or is split
up III butter platters and to crown all.
not satisfied with destruction of tim
Der which finds good motive in hard
cash, a mania has lately seized the road
supervisors, who are cutting down all
the brush which makes our country
roads picturesque and affords a cover for
song birds and game; and another
mania OF farmers, who are destroying
the aIders along every little brook and
spring run which lrugates their farms.
And thus thousands of acres too rocky
to be cultivated are laid bare to the
summer sun, which drinks up all their
moisture, and to the spring and autumn
rains, which flow off the unsheltered soil
Ike water from a ducks back. Hence
ever-iucreasing floods and more trying
and prolonged droughts.
Monroe county III its own narrow
limits is simply doing what America
does as a whole, and reckless destruc-
ton of trees, without replanting, is not
only living ON its principal in the shape
Of wood, but destroying its principal by
lessening the value of its farming land.
Empires once powerful and prosperous
are said to have owed their fall to GER
tain freshe's and uncertain crops caused
by the wholesale denudation of the
land.
To make and keep Monroe county
prosperous its rocky land should be re-
planted with trees as fast as they are
cut and be properly protected from fire.
The roadsides should be picturesquely
edged with brush, or duly lined with
those shade trees for whose planting a
Commonwealth RENTS the !
taxes. Pools, brooks, and spring runs
should be sheltered by alders and willow
from the thirsty SUD. In this way the |
streams would be more equable in their
flow, the rains more evenly distributed,
and the soil more uniformly moistened.