388 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Much more unaccountable seems our own indifierence to the disap- 

 pearance of our forests, since our science Las demonstrated to the sat- 

 isfaction of all rational and semi-rational beings including seme very 

 conservative rulers of Western Europe that an animal flayed, or a 

 tree stripped of its bark, does not perish more surely than a land de- 

 prived of its trees. 



The Duke of Burgundy's rule, " One-third to the hunter, two- 

 thirds to the husbandman," expresses about the most desirable pro- 

 portion of woodlands and cultivated fields. In a country blessed with 

 such a plethora of Avoods as the United Stales between the Atlantic 

 and the valley of the Mississippi could boast of less than a hundred 

 years ago, the work of " clearing " could therefore be pursued within 

 very liberal limits, not only without injury, but with positive benefit to 

 the climate, inasmuch as it would counteract excess of moisture and mi- 

 asmatic tendencies. But in some of our Southern and Central States this 

 limit has already been passed. The State's of Ohio and Indiana, and the 

 southern parts of Kentucky and Michigan, so recently a part of the 

 great East-American forest, have even now a greater percentage of tree- 

 less area than Austria and the North-German Empire, that have been 

 settled and cultivated for upward of a thousand years. The northern 

 borders of Ohio are kept comparatively fertile by the neighborhood of 

 the great lakes, but the central regions, and many of the river-counties, 

 begin to suffer from drought, and see their springs fail in every sum- 

 mer. The " Blue-Grass " region of Kentucky, once the pride of the 

 West, has now districts of such a barren and arid nature that their 

 stock-farmers are moving toward the Cumberland Mountains, because 

 the creeks and old springs dried up, and their wells became too low 

 to furijish water for tlieir cattle. 



Wherever tobacco and cotton are cultivated, the work of ruin has 

 made rapid advances, and in all the southeastern counties of Virginia 

 and North Carolina, and throughout Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, 

 and South Carolina, the traveler may ride for hours without seeing 

 more than four or five trees in a group; droughts are becoming more 

 and more frequent, and the locust, that ominous pioneer of the desert, 

 has made its appearance. 



The climatic influence of arboreal vegetation must be more gener- 

 ally understood, before siich legislative measures as the importance of 

 the subject demands, can be hoped for. In the economy of Nature 

 forests perform innumerable functions which no artificial contrivance 

 can imitate, and of which the following are only the most important: 



Woods, in the first place, are the water-reservoirs of Nature, and 

 hold in the network of their roots and their moss-carpet the moisture 

 which is intended to supply our water-courses in the season of mid- 

 summer heat. One acre of full-grown beech-trees absorbs and dis- 

 penses as much humidity as twenty acres of grape-vines and tobacco, 

 and more than two hundred acres of cereals. 



