THE SUMMER MEETING, 17 



large part of our State nothing assists more to keep the track iu good condition 

 than moisture, and on all such there is no danger from a heavy roadside 

 planting. 



But how about our heavier soils? On them, certainly, the clearing away of 

 the forest improves the track by making it dryer. But proving that a forest 

 is bad no more proves a single line of trees to be so, than the drowning of a 

 man in the ocean proves that a foot bath is dangerous. 



Let us reflect a little on the process of drying or evaporation. This is an 

 absorption by the air of the moisture contained in those substances with which 

 it comes in contact, and its rapidity varies according to the degree of satura- 

 tion of this air. Without wind, this soon reaches a point that produces equi- 

 librium and so checks evaporation entirely, except as upper strata may grad- 

 ually absorb part of the moisture of the lower. A wind, however, soon changes 

 all this, and by commingling the different strata of air, constautly brings new 

 portions of unsaturated air into contact with the moist surface and so dries it 

 much more rapidly than still air can. It is an error to say that the sun 

 "drinks up water." Except through heating the air and thereby increasing 

 its capacity for holding the vapor of water, it does not help at all in the process 

 of evaporation. It is the air that is thus made thirsty by the action of the 

 sun, and it is the air which drinks up the water from the surface of the earth 

 or of the ocean. Thus we see that it is of comparatively little moment whether 

 or not we shade our road bed, if we do not at the same time shut off the winds 

 from blowing upon it. 



There is no danger of our doing this to an injurious degree if we plant no 

 closer than provided for by the law, especially if we take care to trim so as to 

 have no branches within eight or ten feet of the ground. Such trees standing 

 sixty feet apart will serve to modify thg violence of heavy winds, but they will 

 produce none of the effect of a dense thicket, which, by shutting off all wind, 

 almost prevents evaporation, and so keeps the ground beneath it moist at all 

 times. 



Many muddy roads are inexcusably so because nothing has been done toward 

 shaping them so as to shed water from their surface. A road on heavy soil, to 

 be good at all times, should be rounded up from the sides toward the center, 

 with a good open ditch at the sides. Where this has been thoroughly done, 

 there will be very little cause to complain of the effect of road-side tree plant- 

 ing. No farmer need be reminded of the influence of isolated trees in his 

 fields, which is rather to dry up than to keep moist the soil about them, and by 

 thus drying out to stunt the growth of smaller vegetation near them. 



The practice of perfect road-making is wholly unknown iu this country as 

 compared with England, Germany, France, and Switzerland, and yet in those 

 countries nothing is more common than to see long lines of trees on each side 

 of roads, the surface of which is as smooth and free from ruts or standing 

 water as a parlor floor. 



James Satterlee, Greenville : It seems to me that trees in the highway to do 

 any good for a long time after planting should be less than 60 feet apart. One 

 great benefit of trees along the highway is to prevent the snow from drifting, 

 and I would certainly plant them as near together as 40 or even 30 feet. 



Mr. Lyon : If we wish the trees to thoroughly develop in all their beauty, 

 60 feet is near enough, provided both sides are planted and the trees alternate. 



S. B. Mann, Adrian : I consider the road-bed of a great deal more impor- 

 tance than the tree planting. We had better spend our time and exertion iu 

 getting good road-beds first, then let the embellishment be taken in hand. 



