STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 47 



year, owing chiefly to one great fire, rose to the enormous figure of 

 2,910,000,000 feet. This year it has reached 2,000,000,000. Mr. Little 

 avers, that during the next twelve years, judging from the past, this 

 country will require 70,000,000,000 feet of lumber, and that we have not 

 more than one-half that amount remaining in the woods. Canadaalready 

 is supplying us with large quantities, but all she has east of the Rocky 

 mountains would not last us three jears. 



These figures are still more alarming by adding a quotation I made 

 last winter, in an article on forest culture (for the Northern Illinois 

 Horticultural Society), from the monthly report of the Department of 

 Agriculture, of December, 1870. It is there estimated, " that one hun- 

 dred and fifty thousand acres of the best timber is cut every year to supply 

 the demand for railway sleepers alone. For railroad buildings, repairs, 

 and cars, the annual expenditure in wood is thirty-eight million dollars. 

 In a single year the locomotives of the United States consume fifty-six 

 million dollars' worth of wood. There are in the whole country more 

 than five hundred thousand artisans in wood ; and if the value of the 

 labor of each is one thousand dollars a year, the wood industry of the 

 country represents an amount of nearly five hundred million dollars per 

 annum." 



These figures are truly alarming, and bring before us a great practical 

 question, which should engage the earnest attention of our State Society. 

 The facts are before us, and we can see the danger that threatens our 

 beautiful country. 



The pages of history point us to the fate of foreign countries, that 

 were once as fruitful and powerful as our own. In Palestine and Persia, 

 for instance, the timber has not only disappeared, but civilization has 

 gone with it. The populations have gone back into barbarism, and the 

 land has become a prey to desolating famine. In ancient times, these 

 regions were noted for their fertility; but with the disappearance of their 

 forests, the whole face of the country has been changed, and equally 

 changed is the character of its population. It is said that "history 

 repeats itself;" hence the imminent danger that threatens us if our forests 

 are to continue to fall before the woodman's axe. 



There seems to be but a slight difference between solar effects on an 

 open field and upon a forest ; yet in that difference, slight as it appears, 

 is involved the mighty law of climatic change, that has converted the 

 populous lands of the old world into inhospitable deserts, and which 

 scourges with water spouts, tornadoes, droughts, famine, and i)estilence, 

 the people of any country who violate it. It is readily observed that the 

 snow disappears in the open field before it does in the forest ; yet who 

 thought to find here the great law of compensation, which prevents the 

 land from deteriorating into a parched desert on the one hand, and 

 keeping it from becoming inhospitable by accumulated snows on the 

 other? but a careful observation of facts shows it to be so. 



The climate of Northern and Central Europe has been greatly 

 ameliorated in the last two thousand years. Varro speaks of the climate 

 of Southern France as being unfavorable to the growth of the vine and 



