The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-03-30
Timber Planting.

Ohio Correspondence Country Gentleman.
have always felt that, since farming Is @
business, the plainest business principles ro-
quire that the capital invested should be kept
undiminished. Land is not, like the capital i'm
vested in manufactures and commerce, easily
replaced. No man created or could create the
soil, and no has right to destroy its fer
tility. That is the heritage of the generations
to come. Each generation has right to use,
but not destroy even diminish It. The for-
es.s were part of the original capital of our
farms in Ohio. or course, it was necessary to
destroy a considerable portion of these to give
space for crops and tillage. am no believer in
the doctrine that it is wrong to harvest the tim !
Der when it is grown and ripe. and the land is
needed for agriculture. But there has been
needless waste, and too much of our land has
severe in heat and cold, food and drouths
wind and hurricane than fifty years
ago. I remember when peaches grew yearly
in abundance all over Ohio whila
favored localities If we had cleared only 60 or
20 per of the land and titled it better, and
left at least 80 per cent in solid forest we should
have been far richer both in cash and climate to-
day. In the older parts of Ohio have scarcely
10 per cent. of the land in real solid forest and
it becomes us to study how we may regain soma
OF the climatic benefits lost with the destruction
of the forests. do not think timber planting
for simple timber growth, or even the saving OF
old forest, will pay under our present rates OF
$75 to 500 per acre. But we can gain the cll-
matte effects without loss of the use of the land
Orchards, sugar camps, roadside trees and culti-
waited crops like and potatoes in rotation
with wheat and clover, will together help to
break the fierce winds, absorb rainfall, retard
excessive evaporation, equaliZe temperature, ia
vlte seasonable precipitation of rain, and help t
prevent drouths, floods and tornadoes Espev
cially is this true of sugar-camps and apple
orchards, dense and strong, and covering the en-
tire ground with the soil kept loose In the maple
grove by the leaves, and in the orchard by occar
sional cultivation and cropping and new seeds
| ing to clover
I have always felt that each farmer ought, in
some way, to do his fair share toward restoring
the valuable climatic effects of the forests that
| have been destroyed; and 80 on my own farm OF
126 acres have saved about fourteen acres OF
maple grove and have planted some fourteen
| acres of apple orchard, and some two hundred
| roadside naples, and have in all, nearly fifty
| acres systematically tile-drained, and about
| seventy acres under tillage and rotation. The
orchard will henceforth be its own wndbreaks
and will protect the dwelling house and the rest
of the farm from north and west winds, while
| the maple grove answers all the climatic effects
| OF q regular forest OF the same area, and both
| orchard and maple grove yield as much net in
l come per acre annually as average farm land.
| know that the ownership of land is considered
absolute in the Uuited States, and each farmer
4 thinks he has perfect right to cut down every
tree ard not replant, and TO exhaust his soil as
| much as he will without return and is restiva
under, or rather resents, any suggestion of COM
| troll. But could never feel it to be right for
each any to pursue course that would be-
| harmful or even ruinous If pursued by all, and
have regulated my conduct accordingly.