THE SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 441 



and happiness, wliicli should alone be sufficient compensation for tlie little labor 

 and expense tliey may cost. 



AVe remember once passing through a little village in which almost every 

 house was surrounded with flowers, shrubs, and vines, and which left upon our 

 mind an ineffaceable impression. Though nearly twenty years have passed 

 since then, we still think of it frequently witli ])leasurc. Could the occupants 

 of those ])retty village places only know of this, they would douljtless feel amply 

 repaid for all their trouble. In all your calculations on the i)rofits of your crops, 

 by all means fail not to include your crop of household adornments. The 

 profits on your grain may be lasting, probably will not; but the profits on your 

 pure, God-given pleasures, though not counted in dollars and cents, can never 

 vanish. — Hiiral Npau Yorker. 



ARBORICULTURE. 



OUR FORESTS REQUIRE RROTECTIOX. 



On reading the first article in the August Popular Science Monthlv, I feel 

 more deeply impressed than ever with the importance of the preservation of our 

 forests. It is strange indeed that the world should be so slow in learning the 

 desolating effects of stripping a country of its forests. I have no doubt that 

 already Michigan feels its effect, though so much remains, in occasioning the 

 summer drouths that certainly are more frequent than formerly. My recom- 

 mendation would be to leave at least one-fourth of the country in r.ative forest, 

 besides extensive planting of fruit and ornamental trees; and for the purpose 

 of ornament, plant or leave clumps and thickets more frequently than is gen- 

 erally seen in this country. In Europe that is done much more than here. 

 And why planting single is so much practiced here, I cannot explain, unless it 

 be our high estimation of j^ersonal individuality. And yet we put them in for- 

 mal rows instead of imitating nature's more beautiful ways of adjustment. It 

 is probably a mistake to suppose our adjacent lakes protect us from drouths, 

 for from the coolness of their waters they more often take than give the rain. 

 And if we go on denuding this Lower Peninsula as we have its southern part 

 the past fifty years, let me predict that in fifty years more the diminution of 

 the rain-fall will be very great. 



My old school fellow, the Hon. George P. Marsh, in his book "Man and 

 Nature,'' says much on the subject, speaking from personal observation, for he 

 had traveled much in AVestern Asia, and has resided in those parts more than 

 twenty years, and is now minister in Italy. And if Dr. Oswald, in his commu- 

 nication referred to, does not exaggerate his account of the dreadful effects of 

 the destruction of the forests on the eastern continent should prove a warning 

 to us of the western that cannot be too soon heeded. He shows that vast 

 countries, once rich and with their millions of inhabitants, are now deserts or 

 but thinly peopled. 



I am now farming some lands that would not stav sold, and am much an- 



