The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-03-12
THE FORESTS OF AMERICA
THEIR EFFECT ON NATIONAL DE-
 FELOPMENT.
Interesting Lecture by Professor Brewer in Sheffield Course-Our Forest Belt Arninst E1raaIa


 in Sheffield Course--Our Forest Belt
 Rich in Varieties of Trees-The Struggle
 Against Forests.
 Prof. w. 1T. Brewer lectured in the Sheffield Scientific school course last evening on Forest States" A large audience was present. The lecture was illustrated and highly instructive and interesting. He said in part: By the forest states I mean the Atlantic states-those lying east of the central prairies. A belt naked of forests stretched entirely across the middle of our country from the gulf to our north ern border. It is called a treeless belt, composed in part of fertile prairies which become less fertile as we pass westward. While it is naked of for ests, strictly speaking, it is not abso- lutely treeless Great stretches of it is entirely without trees of any kind but in places a narrow prairie of will lows or shrubbery were originally found along the water courses and the borders of it patches of scattered trees, not aboundant enough or large enough to be called a forest Some copes are known as oak openings. Further west ward, here and there, a tree adorns some rocky hill, it's stunted trunk and buttle branches telling of it's struggle for life, stunted in the parched soil and shriveled by the drying winds. It is proper to speak of the whole region as a treeless one. This wood belt in the middle states is nowhere less than 400 miles wide and in places is 1000. It narroWs both ways. Southward it grad ually melts into the tropical forests of Mexico. Northward it extends far in to British America until it reaches the evergreen forests of the cold north. The aspects of the forest are as un- like as if they belonged to two con- tinents. Last year in a lecture in this course I spoke of the forests of. the Pacific states. I propose to discuss in this lecture only the Atlantic states.
 As found by the first settlers and early discoyerers the whole region was forest clad continually from Labora- dor to the mouth of the Mississippi riv- er,with here and there grassy swamp or meadow, especially near the sea or patches partly cleared by the Indians of trees kept back by the fires they built, but specks in the vast espanse. l America is a continent rich in trees and forests. Humboldt spoke of is as the "leafy" continent.
 l In all Europe, from which the origi- nal settlers came, there are only about thirty to thirty-two native species that attain a height of thirty or more | feet, and of these but one or two at- tain height of more than 100 feet, ex- | cept in rare cases. In an enumeration made by me in 1872 excluding all the smaller trees, the number of species 1 were found to be about 200, of which more than twenty attained a height of over 100 feet, twelve over 200 feet and l five over 300 feet, the latter in the | Pacific states. Two hundred and ten l feet is the highest I have found in the Atlantic states. To-day, with the dis coveries of seventeen years more, the number of species is increased to about l | eighty three to eighty-flve, the middle states 100 to 105, the northwestern 105 to no, the southeastern states about 13O species.
 Such were the forests the early set | tiers battled' with. The stories about | the early colonists have usually been written with other facts more proni- nent in the minds of the historian, of the politics or religion, or social condi- tion which induced them to migrate, of the way in which the community grew, of the social and political as- poets, of interferences and oppession of their mother countries, of their conflicts with savage men. But the conflict with the savage forest was greater than all these. It was a warfare waged wher- ever man tried to settle. It began with | their landing; it was a warfare waged in time of outward peace, and greater l than in times of political troubles at home. It was a fight with the forests | of nature, a power that never sleeps 1 inexacrable and cruel. The battle was fought acre by acre. A hundred years after the struggle had well begun all | ments had pushed inland and away from the water courses but a few miles It was but few hours travel by the i means we have to-day. All the civili- cations have originated in lands not forest clad; no people inhabiting a for est clad country has ever been able to emerge from savagery. It was not until modern means of travel, the Erie canal and the railroad came into ex- istence that settlers made any rapid advance in subduing the great forests
 Professor Brewer said in regard to I the agitation for the preservation of the forests as affecting the water SUD- ply that the areas of forests in New England is not decreasing, as many fear. Connecticut's forest area is bet ter known than that of any other state For or five years ago it was 38B peI cent. of the entire area of the state. HOME FROM, WASHINGTON.
 Charles Havey returned Thursday