408 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



EFFECTS OF DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS. 



Bead before the Farmers' Club connected with the York Institute, Saco. 



By Charles H. Granger. 



In discussing the subject of tbe destruction of forests, and the 

 evils resulting therefrom, by producing a change of climate, and 

 diminishing the number and amount of rainfiills, thus lessening 

 the supplies to the natural irrigation of the soil ; also by too great 

 a denudation of the laud, causing it to receive an excess of beat 

 from the sun's rays, thereby drying up the springs and streams, 

 and causing incalculable injury to agricultural operations, it will not 

 be necessary to deal with many statistical facts and details, but only 

 with the broad scientific principles which originate and govern all 

 natural laws. 



It must bo apparent to the most careless observer that for a 

 long period of years, and to an unprecedented extent at the present 

 time, there has been going on and is still progressing an immense 

 destruction of our forests. Possessed with the demon of greedy 

 gain, men put in the axe and cut down the trees without a thought 

 beyond the interests of the present time, and whether the evils 

 arising from their removal will not far exceed in the not distant 

 future, any supposed present advantages. 



It is presumed that all will admit that the most important inter- 

 est in the world is the production of food ; for, without a sufficient 

 supply of that first necessity, all civilization would cease. Cities, 

 and in fact whole regions of country would be deserted ; and, as 

 history informs us has already more than once taken place, whole 

 nations would make a general exodus, and become nomadic, scat- 

 tering over the face of the earth in search of the necessary means 

 of subsistence. This being true then, it must be evident that agri- 

 culture must take the precedence, in importance and interest, of 

 every other pursuit. 



Thence follows the inquiry, how can the best and most natural 

 conditions, on which the successful prosecution of ngricultur* 

 depends, be preserved ; and what may be done to violate those 

 conditions, and throw obstacles in the way of that pursuit ? First, 

 then, wluit are some of those obvious conditions ? According to 

 the etymology of the word agriculture, it imports the cultivatiou 



