SAVE THE FORESTS. 151 



abandoned throughout the earlier settled regions of the State ; while some of 

 the very finest varieties of apples, and pears, of whose hardiness no fears were 

 formerly entertained, have conic to be so far doubtful in this particular that, at 

 least in many localities, they arc cither very sparsely planted or omitted alto- 

 gether. The wheat crop also — once one of the staple products of Michigan, is, 

 in part at least, by this change from shelter to exposure, rendered so unreliable 

 and unprofitable that, in many places, the product has ceased to bo adequate to 

 even the home demand. Sonic people are disposed to assume, as the cause of 

 this change, that the general temperature of our country, and indeed of the 

 world, is gradually becoming colder in consequence of the diminution of its 

 central heat, while others resort for an explanation to the supposition that such 

 seasons of unusual cold or heat occur in cycles of greater or less extent; and 

 yet others assume that such paroxysms are the result of fortuitous circum- 

 stances growing out of meteorological combinations too complex for analysis 

 with our present knowledge of the subject. We, however, can but regard these 

 assumptions as the outcropping of that innate perversity of the human mind, in 

 the indulgence of which many persons seek to evade the consciousness that 

 misfortune may have come upon them as the result of their own inconsiderate 

 misdoing. In fact there can, in this case, be no necessity for a resort to such 

 reasoning, inasmuch as the application to the problem, of the well known and 

 unquestioned laws of physical science suffices for its solution. To merely 

 change the phraseology of a conclusion heretofore reached — while the forest 

 covering of a country suffices, under ordinary circumstances, to restrain both 

 the radiation of heat, and its dissipation through the process of evaporation, till 

 a paroxysm of cold shall have passed, and thus to avoid the occurrences of very 

 low temperatures, the free exposure of the surface of cleared and cultivated 

 lands occasions a maximum radiation of heat, during: clear or otherwise favor- 

 able weather ; while the impinging of the winds directly upon such exposed 

 surface by carrying off moisture in the form of vapor, still more rapidly dissi- 

 pates both the heat and moisture of the soil. The effect of the operation of 

 one or both these causes upon open lands, must, therefore, inevitably be to so 

 reduce the surface temperature of such lands as to increase their liability to 

 drouth, in case of the non-occurrence of timely rains ; while, in winter, occa- 

 sional paroxysms of severe cold will unavoidably induce a greater diminution 

 of temperature, in such exposed localities, than in those protected by a cover- 

 ing of forest. 



But cui bono? asks the farmer, whose broad acres have been assured to him 

 by the government, for the purpose of its improvement, and whose wealth and 

 even his means of subsistence must be wrung from these very acres, by first de- 

 priving them of their leafy covering, and subjecting them to the influences that 

 are alleged to have wrought such unfavorable results. The answer to this 

 plausible and, at first thought, apparently insurmountable obstacle, in the way 

 of a practical use of the facts we have so far endeavored to elucidate, must, as 

 a matter of course, consist in the devising of a plan for accomplishing, as far as 

 practicable, both these important objects, in harmony with each other. 



In some European countries the government assumes to dictate to each laud- 

 holder how much and which of the timber growing upon his lands he shall, 

 from year to year, be permitted to remove. And the cutting away of forests, 

 in such countries, is thus kept within what the government decides to be judi- 

 cious limits. But, in our country, in which all governmental authority is but 

 the expression of the aggregated will of the people, our educational machinery 



