282 TRANSACTIONS OF THE NORTHERN 



EVENING SESSION. 



A most interesting lecture was delivered by H. McAfee on the Woods of Stephenson 

 County, the large assembly being much interested. He illustrated his statements by 

 the specimens displayed to the meeting, a number of questions being asted by his 

 listeners. The question was a new one to them. 



CUB NATIVE WOODS AND TLMUER CIJLTUEE. BY HENRY II. M'AFEE. 



Old Egnit, the land of the Pharaoh's, the Sphyux, and the Pyramids, is leaching us of the New 

 AVorld two vital lessons, lessons of such paramount importance that the very being- of generations 

 of men hangs upon our appreciation of them. 



These lessons, the one of spoliation and its consequences, and the other, its antithisis, the lesson 

 of production and its results, are so full of interest to every thinker that tliey well deserve our most 

 carefid study. In Upper Egjijt the formerly fertile country along the Nile has been gradually 

 denuded of its timber, and a decrease of the rain-fall has kept steady pace with the destruction of 

 the timber, and the desert lias steadily marched on, subduing the country to its wild domain till the 

 sands of the Lybian desert now drift into the Nile. Here is the result of spoliation. 



On the other hand, in Lower Egj-pt the last three Viceroys have given mucli energy to extending the 

 canal sj'stems and jolanting trees, and also tlie great engineer of the Suez canal, M. DeLesseps, has 

 made tree planting a part of his policj', and the result has exceeded the largest expectations; rain- 

 falls are increasing, indeed rain falls now where it has not been known to fall before for hundreds 

 of years, and the desert is being reclaimed, the arable area is extending, and gardens and fields 

 exist where once was only the drifting sands. This is the lesson of production. 



Nor are these instances alone in their evidence as to the importance of tree growths. In every 

 case where history has recorded the facts of forest denudation, or forest production, the same 

 meterological phenomena have followed, namely; After the destruction of timber, aridity and 

 sterility; after the new growth of timber humidity and fertility. It is but fair, then, to conclude 

 that if the rapid spoliation of the great Nortliern forests and of our local groves goes on, we shall 

 ere long have the pertinent inquiry: "What shall we do for a climate?" As the production of trees 

 and plants is, so far, tlie only means known by wliich man can to any appreciable degree influence 

 the meteorology of a country in his favor, the question of timljcr production rises to the iDroportion 

 of one of the grandest of our industries. 



But with all the importance which a philanthropist or generid economist may give to the arboreal 

 industries in a money-getting eountrj', and among a money-making people, there is an argument 

 still more potent; in fact, all powerful, the argument of pecuniary interest. This argument success- 

 fully applied to anj' subject will commend it to the public ear, endear it to the public heart. The 

 fact then that more monej' is involved in the tree question tlian in any one other interest in our 

 country, should clearly enlist the public syni'pathies in favor of arboriculture. And this it will do 

 when once all doubt is removed, and the facts are made plain by experimental demonstration. 

 Here is work for practical horticulturists all over the land, and here also is a work for the Nation, 

 the States, and for Municipalities. While the actual facts as to the profitableness of tree culture 

 are to be demonstrated by actual trial, the men who are making these practical demonstrations 

 deserve and should have the aid and encouragement of the Nation, the State and the County. 



The old philosophers had an axiom which all scientific progress has not disproved that "natm-e 

 abhors a vacuum." The spot on earth vacuous of organic life is most truely abhorred of natiu-e, 

 wherever such a spot exists, all the forces of nature ai-e perpetually at work to overcome, this 

 abnormal condition, and to produce the conditions favoi';;lile for organic existence. 



Where man in his ignorance has followed a system of liusbandry which has depleted the earth of 

 its stores of plant food, until he is forced to abandon his worn out fields, the lichen, the sedge, tlie 

 hardy grass, tlie thistle, burdock and their myriad of despised coadjutors, succeeded by tlie bramble, 

 tlie rose, the sassafras, the elder, and other shrubs and trees step in, and in their succession of 

 growth and decay, carry on their work of renovation and reconstruction till they have obliterated 

 the sterility forced upon the soU by our wrong doing, our robbery, not culture. This, if atmos- 

 pheric conditions are favorable, is the circle of organic life often observed; and it proves, what? 

 that the plant is the salvation or the redemption of the soil from the abliorrcd vacuum of sterility. 



The grandest problem of any age remains for us to work out by tree planting upon the so-called 

 Great American Desert. This immense area, sloping from the great central axis of upheaval of our 



