TRANSACTIONS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NORTHERN ILL. 281 



Mr. ScoFiELD proceeded to read the following extracts from the re- 

 port of the Board of Agriculture of the State of Maine, and remarks 

 thereon : 



Mr. Calvin Chamberlain, in an able memorial on the subject of 

 forests, presented to the House of Representatives, in the State of Maine, 

 in 1867, says : 



There is a portion of Hancock county (Maine), alon<^ the coast, that is now 

 nearly denuded of trees. During the heat of summer the radiation from the parched 

 surface affects the atmosphere to excessive dryness. The electrical and rain-bearing 

 clouds that approach from the westward, as they come within this dry atmosphere are 

 absorbed, and dissipated before their watery contents can reach the earth ; while the 

 clouds just north of them lloat on over a better wooded district, and yield a copious 

 rainfall; and, on the other hand, the showers continue abundant in the more humid 

 atmosphere of the contiguous bays and ocean. 



Mr. Sargent says : 



That our climate is gradually changing, through the destruction of timber, is a]v 

 parent to the most casual observer. Our springs are later, our summers are dryer, and 

 every year becoming more so. 



The abandoned lands have generally grown up with trees compara- 

 tively worthless for use in the arts, and which only supply, in after years, 

 a straggling growth of an inferior fuel. 



The most valuable trees have always been cut, often before they 

 reached maturity; and as no steps have been taken to replace them, it is 

 not astonishing that the poverty of our woodlands has reached a point 

 which compels the inhabitants of the State to draw nearly their whole 

 supply of lumber from portions of the country more recently settled. 

 This is attended with so much expense and inconvenience, that many 

 valuable industries have already moved from Massachusetts; and it is not 

 improbable that at no distant day many others, depending on the forests 

 for their existence, will be compelled to do likewise. By the census of 

 1870, there were in Massachusetts, besides the woodlands, nearly two 

 millions (1,988,164) of acres of unimproved land. Of these, at least 

 1,200,000 are admirably suited for forest growth, and if planted with 

 trees adapted to the various soils and situations, they would produce at 

 the end of fifty years a crop, the actual value of which, in dollars, can 

 only be reckoned by hundreds of millions. 



It is impossible to estimate the indirect profit of such plantations in 

 improved climate and water power, but that it would equal or exceed the 

 actual value of the timber produced seems not improbable: while the 

 benefits arising from so large an additional area of forest would be felt 

 far beyond the limits of the State. 



There are in Massachusetts, according to the last returns, 26,500 

 farms (a falling off of 7,500 since 1850, or considerably more than one- 

 fifth of all the farms in the State, in twenty years,) which average one 

 hundred and three acres in extent, or, in the aggregate, 772,500 acres. 



