Sullivan republican. [volume] (Laporte, Pa.) 1883-1896, 1891-03-27
SOMETHING ABOUT DUFF
ITS IMPORTANT PART IN THE
ECONOMY OF THE FORESTS.

A Huge Spring Which Retains Wa
ter From Rainfalls - Feeding
the Rivers and Brooks.
"There is monstrous lot of Ignorance
about forestry in this country" said an
old Maine woodsman the other day.
''Many even of those who want to SEE
our forests preserved have no intelligent
conception of the part which forests
play in the economy of nature. There
is W. II. II. Murray, for instance, an in
telligent man who knows a good deal
about woodcraft, and yet he falls into
the mistake that forests can be thinned
out by judicious cutting of the old trees
without any evil results. AS matter of
fact, such practice, at least in Maine,
would destroy the lumber industry, as
well as the forests, for it would let in the
sunlight and that would most effectually
dry up the duff
'You don't know what duff is2 OF
course not; and yet duff is one of the
most wonderful of natures provisions
for the storage of moisture, necessary
for the trees themselves and for the lum-
bermen. OF course you know that all
tree telling takes place in winter. The
trees felled are hauled on the ice of
lakes, ponds, rivers and brooks, or on
the banks thereof, where they can be
easily launched in the spring. From the
time when the ice disappears until late
in June, or into July, the lumberman is
busy on the drive, working his logs to
market by water. Everything in fact
depends on good supply of water. And
if it fails early in the spring before his
work is done his logs are hung up for
that year, resulting in serious loss to
him. Not only, therefore, must the wa
ter be high, but it must continue high
for many weeks; and this is where ma
ture comes in with her duff.
"You know how quickly the spring
freshets subside in an open country
where the sun has chance to melt the
ice and snow. Within few days, may
be, the earth dries up and the swollen
nary summer condition. But in the
primeval forest it is not so. Here for
generation after generation trees have
sprouted, grown and died, and each sue
ceedlng year the great bulk of buds and
leaves which have been fed by the sap
and the atmosphere wither and fall to
the ground. In this way, in process of
time, is found mass often covered with
beautiful moss, sometimes two or three
feet deep, known to the lumbermen as
'duff." 1t is simply a huge sponge,
which absorbs millions of gallons of
water from the fall rains, which is later
most effectually sealed up by the frost,
and is then covered by the winter snow.
If the sunlight should be let in on it by
thinning the trees it would disappear in
one season. But if nature is not inter-
fered with a most wonderful process
takes place.
''When the spring thaw occurs the
ice, snow and frozen moisture in the
open country are quickly released and
help to swell the running streams.
While this lasts the lumberman gets
more water than he needs, but it doesn't
last long. Then the duff appears as
his good angel. On the watershed of
the waters through which his drive
passes, there lies this huge sponge, two
or three feet thick and hundreds Of
square miles i'll extent, saturated to
the brim with water. And, as
the heat increases, Dame Nature pro-
ceeds gradually to squeeze and wiring out
this sponge, not in one day or one week,
but all though the spring and well into
July. As result of this invisible COM
preston water slowly oozes from under
every rock, leaf and twig, and flows in
driblets to swell the rivers and brooks.
Long after the ponds which are fed from
the cultivated fields have fallen to their
low-water mark, the streams fed by the
forest duff are flowing full and steady.
There are no SHOWS in the woods; but
the duff which might be called
mighty lake held in solution, keeps up
the high-water mark for many weeks,
thus enabling the lumberman to get his
logs to market and in other ways serving
the highest interests of man. For what
could we do without rivers, aside from
the lumber question? And how are we
going to have rivers if we allow Natures
reservoir, known as duff to be de-
stroyedE
"There is a good deal of interest in
forest preservation nowadays and am
glad to see it. But l would like to see
it expressed in a concrete form by tho
organization of Society for the De-
fence of Duff That would get people
from vague generalities down to actual
facts. What is duff would be the
first question of the members, and in get.
ting the answer to that question they
would come in possession of heap of
knowledge about forestry that would
very much increase their love for trees
and their desire to protect them. Nan