1883.] MODIFYING EFFECTS OF FORESTS. 121 



serve those conditions in the atmosphere favorable to rains — 

 encouraging their frequency and more equal distribution at all 

 seasons, and especially so are they favorable to our summer 

 thunder showers. Now storms universally result in medium tem- 

 perature; a season of frequent rains in summer is not an extreme 

 hot period; in winter, with frequent storms the same medium 

 temperature is maintained, your extremes of either heat or cold 

 being co-incident with your fair, stormless periods. The presence 

 of large bodies of water, though frozen, have the same moderat- 

 ing influences — there is a constant moisture in the air, and though 

 it may feel raw and chilly, yet the temperature in such localities 

 rarely sinks so low as to kill peach buds. In Western Wisconsin 

 the air is dry and the thermometer often sinks below zero to thirty, 

 killing all the tender fruits and giving to apple trees a stunted, 

 dwarfy growth, while in similar latitudes in Michigan, surrounded 

 as it is by water, all fruits grow to perfection with little risk or 

 vmcertainty. Nature has ordered the forests with capacities to 

 affect similar conditions in inland regions, and unless we take instant 

 ft measures either as individuals or as States to arrest their destruction 

 and preserve and increase them, we shall more and more approxi- 

 mate to the climate infertility and bareness of desert regions. 



Suppose, for an illustration of the principles I have contended 

 for, this hall or room to represent a Territory or State, if you 

 please. In the early period of its settlement a very small space 

 would represent its first surface area cleared of its primeval 

 forest and devoted to culture. The sun having free access to the 

 soil, warms it up and the atmosphere resting on it also — the latter 

 rising as it becomes heated — and the cool, moist air, protected by 

 the surrounding forest, flows in and arrests the extreme heat of 

 our more burning, dry periods. As new centres of settlement 

 spring up over the State you have the same ameliorating condi- 

 tions to arrest the e%'il, but as your population increases and finally 

 your forests are more generally decimated, these sources of re- 

 served, moist, electrified air become too at variance with your 

 cultivated areas, and when these annual periods of prolonged 

 drouth and intense heat are in the ascendant we feel the want of 

 their moderating influence and hence the blasting, destructive 

 results. Medium temperatures are equally congenial to animal 

 and vegetable life — vital vigor suffers from both extremes. A 

 grass and fruit country needs more especially the conditions here 



