63 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



his cemposition, it might uot take long, with the use of the 

 telegraph, to gather to it a sufficient number to people a consider- 

 able neighborhood. Sufficient exploration has been made for such 

 an Eden, with a result satisfying us that any spot so favored, with 

 a location towards the setting sun, is as great a myth as anything 

 we read of. 



I have said that we now see a degree of sameness in the 

 physical aspect of the country from the Atlantic to the plains be- 

 yond the Mississippi. This is true in degree, and as affecting 

 climate, as the forests are being removed, leaving little more than 

 the configuration of the naked land to break the sweep of the 

 winds, cold and dry, as is their prevailing continental character. 



In comparing the climate of the Atlantic slope with that of the 

 great central valley of our country, where it assumes the charac- 

 ter of treeless plains, it is found that the summers become warmer 

 there, and the winters cooler.* Great as are the extremes on the 

 coast, they become greater on the prairies, thus showing the 

 eflects of the earth's radiation over vast surfaces remote from 

 internal seas, and deprived of forest-belts. 



" The presence of the ocean tends to mitigate the excessive 

 temperature of the Atlantic slope, and the same effect is attributed 

 to the presence of the forests which clothe the crest and the 

 slopes of the Alleghanies. The great lakes exercise a similar in- 

 fluence over the adjacent region." 



Hence we see the isotherms of spring and summer, when traced 

 from a point on the coast, as New York, pursue a uniform west- 

 erly direction until past the western shore of Lake Michigan, 

 when they take an abrupt curve to the northwest. The isotherms 

 for the fall and winter, as they relate to the upper Mississippi re- 

 gion, are depressed to the southward. Thus at St. Paul the sum- 

 mer temperature agrees with that at West Point, and the winter 

 with that of Montreal. 



Having on a previous occasion considered the forests of our 

 country in their intrinsic value as wood and timber, as well as 

 their conserving influence on climate, there still remains so many 

 specific claims of the trees for our protection, and for our ever in- 

 creasing regard, that my present purpose is not half accomplished 

 if I fail to present some points convincing to some minds, that 

 home in a treeless region, if endurable to a Spaniard, can never 

 satisfy such a people as we are, and ought never to do so. 



* J. W. Foster, LL. D., Chicago, 1869. 



