MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 183 



heat and lack of nourishment, or moisture, had brought about. In like 

 manner do ill-fed, starving cattle succumb to winter's chilling blasts, 

 where well-fed stock escape unhurt. 



There are other things which come to my mind, as it reverts to the 

 days of my early youth. Then a small brook of 4 mile in length mean- 

 dered through our pasture, fed by several living springs. Here was 

 water in plenty every day of the year. In it we fished with hook and 

 line and dip-net, and not in vain. There were pools large enough to 

 swim and dive in, where in winter we took our first lessons in gliding 

 along on skates and trying to pound, holes through the ice with our 

 heads, and where, in summer, fluffy ducklings were pulled out of sight 

 by greedy snapping-turtles. 



In less than fifteen years all this was changed. The deep pools 

 filled up or washed out, and during the greater part of the year the 

 brook was dry, a scanty supply of water being found only near some 

 of the springs. What caused this change ? Part of the forest was 

 cut down and the soil turned up by the plow ; the other part by the aid 

 of cattle and swine, was turned into a blue-grass pasture. When rain 

 came down in torrents the freshly plowed soil ran together and the 

 rain ran off in the fields and meadows, and grassy forest and pasture 

 the myriads of famishing roots of grain and grass drank greedily, but 

 the surplus water flowed down the hillsides to mingle with that which 

 came from the plowed fields, carrying away its very essence, and together 

 they rushed on to swell the great river which often caused death and 

 desoaltion to follow in its wake. There were now no layers of leaves 

 several inches deep, covering the decayed remains of other leaves 

 through which the rains sank and were absorbed as fast as they fell, by 

 the sponge-like earth beneath, only to form underground veins and arte- 

 ries which feed the springs and brooks the year round. Before those 

 brooks went dry we had peaches every year. How is it now, and why? 

 Is it because our climate has changed °? Perhaps if we compare the 

 average of temperature and rainfall now, with the years of the period 

 to which I refer, there would be found but little difference. 



But is it not a fact that our summer drouths are more protracted 

 and severe now than formerly ? And is it not because the rains run 

 off the surface, instead of penetrating deeply, and so constantly supply- 

 ing springs and brooks with water for gradual evaporation to cool and 

 moisten the atmosphere and so prevent or modify the hot winds 

 which now, finding but little obtruction, sweep over our denuded hills 

 and valleys with a blast as if from a furnace. 



It seems to me that trees, and plant life in general, must certainly 

 suffer under the changed conditions to which they are now subjected. 



