82 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



atmospheric humidity and the crops of the farm, we need not look 

 to Europe nor the far West. Instances are noted within our own 

 State, where contiguous farms under different extremes of con- 

 dition, manifest corresponding extremes of results, both in fruit 

 products and the grasses. To receive the greatest benefits from 

 improved physical conditions of country at the hand of man, his 

 efforts should be exerted at once on every portion of his domain ; 

 yet a single State may in a degree be benefitted — and to an extent 

 richly compensating for the expenditure of labor by and through 

 independent action. Local acts in the great economy of nature 

 are followed by local results. The spirit in matter is not confined 

 to operations on the largest scale. 



There is a portion of Hancock county along 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 electrial 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 float on over a 

 better wooded district, and yield copious rainfall ; and on the 

 other hand, the showers continue abundant in the more humid 

 atmosphere of the contiguous bays and ocean. The observing 

 sea-faring inhabitants of that district, after years of perplexity 

 over the fact and the hidden cause, at last inquired in all 

 seriousness, whether a telegraph wire located to the north of them 

 does not unfairly " switch off" the showers that rightfully belong 

 to them. 



Whatever is done for the preservation or the restoration of our 

 forests, and thus mitigating the fluctuations of temperature and 

 humidity, and restraining the action of the winds, cannot be 

 commenced too soon. The people need to be agitated and a 

 wholesome public sentiment created. The present theory in regard 

 to physical laws and conditions must be understood and adopted, or 

 discussed and rejected. Wise and able teachers are wanted in this, 

 if in no other matter of present urgency. Men need to be taught 

 that we have no moral right to follow blindly an instinct that leads 

 only to present personal advantage, regardless of wide-spread 

 future evils as a consequent. That we are but tenants of this beau- 

 tiful earth, not owners in perpetuity — that we have no right to 

 injure the inheritance of those who succeed us, but rather a duty 

 to leave it the better for our having occupied it our allotted time. 



