OUR HOMES. • 75 



illustrating- some of the principles here shown, and to prove that 

 the infection and diffusion of malaria or noxious emanations are 

 arrested by trees, whose structure and foliage act as barriers to 

 break the flow, as an absorbent of those emanations, and as elimi- 

 nators of oxygen. 



Among the Romans, the advantages of such barriers were 

 recognized, and the practice of planting trees, to intercept the 

 miasmata emanating from the marshes with which Italy abounds, 

 was enforced by law. Observations have been made in many of 

 these States that clearly show the saving influence of trees on 

 human health. Similar facts are obtained from India, from West- 

 ern x\sia, and from South America. 



One of the summer effects of plants and trees, that contributes 

 directly to our comfort, is to render the atmosphere cooler by the 

 great quantity of water that is exhaled from the leaves. This 

 exhalation is dependent on the capacity of the air for it, and the 

 presence of the sun. The refreshing coolness of a grove is some- 

 thing more than the simple result of the shade. 



A singular fact is here worthy of mention : That in South 

 America, in the centre of the torrid zone, over the broadest plain 

 upon the earth, with a prodigious amount of rain-fall, and the 

 consequent enormous vegetation, the scattered inhabitants along 

 the banks" of the overflowing rivers — people representing difierent 

 races of men — are a healthful people ; and that the heat there is at 

 no time so great as is often experienced in summer in the tem- 

 perate zones. There nature is balanced in her vast unbroken 

 field, where man has not yet entered to mar the admirable pro- 

 portions of her work. 



In the absence of trees, sun-flowers have been planted between 

 a malarious swamp and dwellings, and the health of the people 

 thereby preserved. A sun-flower S^ feet high, with a leaf surface 

 of 5,616 square inches, was observed to perspire at the rate of 20 

 to 30 ounces every twelve hours, or seventeen times more than a 

 man.f 



Tree planting along crowded streets and in parks of dense cities, 

 cannot be too strongly recommended, as a measure of sanitary 

 economy.* But the practice of surrounding a house with dense 



fin the village where the writer now lives, (Foxcrcft and Dover) not one-tenth the 

 relative number of cases of summer fevers now occur as thirty years ago. How far this 

 improvement in the health of the neighborhood is due to the great number of our beauti- 

 ful trees, that have mostly been planted and grown within that period, would be inter- 

 esting to know. * J. H. Rauch, M. D. 



