FORESTS GROWTH FOR SHELTER. 77 



are dry winds, and must so continue over the desert region which 

 spreads out towards the Mississippi. These conclusions are so 

 well established, that it has long been remarked of the northern 

 Atlantic States, " so long as the westerly winds continue to blow 

 in winter, there is no cessation to your cold ; and so long as they 

 continue to blow in a broad, regular stream in summer, there is no , 

 end to your drougl^t." 



Our only protection from the baneful influences of this great dry- 

 ing agent — the westerly wind, is in ample and systematic planting 

 of evergreen trees on the cold sides of our fields, orchards and 

 gardens generally. 



The success that has ever attended the introduction of such im- 

 provements, both in Europe and America, places the matter at 

 once above and beyond all questions of practicability and ex- 

 pediency.. 



The action of the forest, considered merely as a mechanical shel- 

 ter to grounds lying to the leeward of it, would seem to be an 

 influence of too restricted a character to deserve much notice, 

 were it not for the multitude of facts that concur to show its im- 

 portance as an element in local climate. A writer from Belgium 

 may be quoted in point : "A spectator placed on the famous bell- 

 tower of the cathedral of Antwerp, saw, not long since, on the 

 opposite side of the Schelde only a vast desert plain ; now he sees 

 a forest, the limits of which are confounded with the horizon. 

 Let him enter within its shade. The supposed forest is but a 

 system of regular rows of trees, the oldest of which is not forty 

 years of age. These plantations have ameliorated the climate 

 which had doomed to sterility the soil where they are planted. 

 While the tempest is violently agitating their tops, the air a 

 little below is still, and sands far more barren than the plateau of 

 La Hague have been transformed, under their protection, into fer- 

 'tile fields." 



A decline in fruit products in Maine has been apparent for a con- 

 siderable time. Other farm crops are seemingly in a decline also. 

 Potatoes, oats, and wheat, now rarely give such crops as they did 

 thirty or forty years ago. Fruit trees take on diseases, apples 

 become scabbed and distorted ; pears often knotty, cracked, and 

 extremely perverse, plum and cherry trees forget former habits and 

 old friendships, blight and rust and insect destroyers ai;e every- 

 where. The farmer's crops are invaded from all sides. The cry of 

 local exhaustion of the elements in the soil, negligent culture, and 



