378 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF THE 



ble life, from the humblest plant clinging close to the bosom of 

 earth, only blooming to die. to the lofty Sequoia rearing its head 

 to heaven and braving the tempests for thousands of years; if 

 the physician can discover the agents which generate disease 

 in the animal kingdom, and prescribe antidotes and remedies 

 for each,— may not the cultivator acquire a knowledge of the 

 diseases which affect his trees and plants, and how to cure 



them ? 



Is there any element in nature which man cannot make 

 subservient to his use ? Is there any disease for which Nature 

 has not provided a remedy ? Is there any enemy to vegetation 

 that cannot be overcome? True, there are many things of 

 which we know but little, and which require long and careful 

 study, but there are others which are well established, and 

 which one fact may demonstrate as well as a thousand. 



VIII. SHELTER. 



The necessity of shelter was not as soon perceived as some 

 of the other lessons which I have named; yet, with perhaps 

 the exception of a few favored spots, its importance is year by 

 year lecoming more generally appreciated, especially on our 

 open piairies and in the northern and northwestern portions 

 of our country. The fact is established, that the removal of 

 forests diminishes the quantity of rain, increases the evapora- 

 tion of moisture, reduces the temperature, and subjects our 

 fruits to greater vicissitudes, so that the peach and many of 

 our finest pears can be no longer cultivate-d at the North, except 

 in gardens or sheltered places. The importance of shelter 

 was well understood as long ago as the time of Quintinye, 

 who, in his work on gardening, gives full directions for plant- 

 ing ti-ees for shelter. This was in a country long settled and 

 denuded of its forests ; and though our ancestors, planting 

 fruit-trees in a virgin soil thickly covered with wood, failed to 

 perceive its necessity, we in our older States, who have come 

 to much the same conditions as existed in the time of Quin- 

 tinye, experience the same want. 



