202 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



forests afford against northern winds to the great agricultural districts 

 which lie to the south of them. 



And here I cannot but refer to a most short-sighted policy which 

 our Government has been pursuing in giving a factitious value to 

 lumber made from our own timber, by a so-called protective tax on 

 .foreign lumber. While this has operated directly against the building 

 interests of our own people, it, at the same time, has led to the more 

 rapid destruction of our own forests ; and, in thus giving protection to 

 the capital employed in lumbering, it is removing the protection which 

 our forests afford to the American agriculturist, thus damaging the 

 people at large in a twofold manner. This must be the case just so 

 far as the forests belonging to the United States afford greater protec- 

 tion to our cultivated fields than is afforded by the forests of Canada. 

 We do not realize the benign influence which our forests to the west 

 and east of the great lakes exercise upon the climate and agricul- 

 ture of the country. Imagine them all removed ; the cold winds from 

 the northwest and northeast, having unobstructed sweep, would reach 

 us with greater force, and, passing over a bleak and treeless region, 

 they would come to us absolutely colder. Our Government, by its 

 protective policy, has been doing something to bring about this un- 

 desirable result. It is high time that a wiser policy should prevail, 

 and that the Government should protect by taking its hands off. 1 (It 

 is gratifying to record that, since the above was written, the duty on 

 lumber has been greatly reduced.) 



There is no need of attributing more to forests than is their due. 

 There are storms against which they afford no protection avalanches 

 of cold which rush down upon the country, killing fruit-buds, and even 

 vines, shrubs, and trees. But these are exceptional. It is in the case 

 of somewhat milder cold-storms that forests save, when without them 

 there would be ruin. The great fact of the increasing uncertainty of 

 fruit and agricultural crops with the continued clearing of the country, 

 is a fact so patent, and of import so significant, that it alone is sufficient 

 to prove the great value of forests for protection, and to put us on 

 guard against their wanton destruction. 



1 According to an estimate in the Report of the Department of Agriculture for 1870, 

 all the pine-timber in the region between the Mississippi on the west and Lakes Superior 

 and Michigan on the north and east, will, at the present rate of consumption, disappear 

 within the next twelve years, while the hard wood will last only about twelve years longer. 

 Lumbermen do not take all, but what they leave is consumed by the fires which generally 

 follow. About 330,000 acres are denuded annually in this region. This is only a part, 

 perhaps, about half the annual consumption of timber in the northwestern section of our 

 country. To compensate for this loss only about 150,000 acres are annually planted in 

 timber throughout the entire West. 



This destruction of timber is general. Even fruit-localities are not spared, as the 

 writer has had abundant opportunity to witness, where the demand for railroad ties at 

 high prices has created almost a furor for coining money out of the great oaks, regardless 

 of consequences to climate and culture. 



The alarm about the destruction of timber in this country is only too well founded. 



