Smyrna times., 1895-03-27
The EFFECTS OF DEFORESTATION.

Correspondence to the Smyrna Times
Within the last two decades marked
changes have taken place in the coun-
try's supply of material for the build
ing trades. In iron, the inexhaustible
deposits of the southwestern group of
States have by cheapness of production
practically taken from Pennsylvania
the leadership of the ore-producing
States. Along the Schuykill, and up
the Lehigh, stack after stack have ex-
tinguished their fires and stand to-day
grim monuments in idleness of the
pitiless competition OF the South in
cheap Ores and fuel. The spirit of trade
is to buy in the cheapest markets with
out too close an inquiry as to quality.
Hence, it is that the tough, close
grained iron of the Northern States
gives way to the fbrOus and moro
easily worked metal of the South. Just
SO it is with the supply of woods, the
soft, resinOus grades have long since
supplanted the tougher and dense
grained hard lumber. Twenty years
ago the magnificent white oak of Della
ware stood far and away above all
other timber for a superiority that
found its chief claim in tenacious last
Ing qualities. The wooden walls of
many good ship have been more safe
ly and pro6tably built with this splen-
did material than of other kinds noe
excepting the famous live-oak of
Florida.
You see now no stately ships or
buildings framed of Delaware oak, the
cheaper and more easily obtained pine
has taken its place. We will say that
the loss to the Delaware Peninsula in
her superb timber has been amply COM
pensated by the increased acreage ac-
quired for soil cultivation, perhaps it
will appear later ON less real and less
apparent, A disturbed equilibrium
must be restored somehow or else COM
pensating damage is sure to follow.
We will call this compensation, cli-
matic, and trace the effects of it iA
other parts of the county.
In the first place, if treeless eOun-
try is not an arid one, it Is sure to be
affected by violent climatic changes
such as occur upon the great plains of
the West, The appalling billiards of
these great prairie seas gathering force
along the wind-swept slopes of sterile
mountains, sweep along with resistless
fury over treeless spaces until vast sec
tions of country are made to feel the
biting effects of what seems to be Wis.,
tation of Providence for improvidence
in not placing some check upon the
wanton and often unnecessary destruc-
ton of valuable woodlands.
The loss to Florida in this winters
visitation of frost will reach upwards
of $1O,000,00O Certain and sure some
cause other than the severity Of the
season has laid low the hopes Of the
people of State who deVOting their
whole attention to the growing Of
tropical fruits, confident that their sec
ton of country was well below the
frost line, have now the prospect Of
looking for this calamity annually,
But what has been going on steadily
for the last ten years in the States to
the north of Florida not excepting the
State itself2 Millions and millions of
feet of timber have been cut from the
pineries of Georgia, the Carolinas and
the tiers of States bordering on lhe.
West.
Southern pine finds its way 10 market.
for every conceivable use. You can,
find nothing now built of wood but
what depends for structural strength.
! Continued on Fourth Page