WINTER MEETING AT LEBANON. 309 



OUR FOREST TREES. 



PROF. M. G. KERN, ST. LOUIS, MO. 



Finding* myself advertised in your program for a paper in honor of 

 our forest trees, I submit to the inevitable and offer my mite respect- 

 fully to the entertainment of this present session of the horticultural 

 society of the State, trusting that the poetical and rhetorical embellish- 

 ments of which this broad subject so liberally admits, will be added to 

 by the eloquence of speakers taking part in the discussion which is to 

 follow the reading of the several papers tendered to this annual reunion. 



Collectively considered, our forest trees are our forests, destined 

 in the economy of nature to perform the most momentous functions in 

 the equilibrium and moderation of climatic conditions, in the perpetuity 

 of the life springs of our water courses, in the supply of raw materials 

 of the most indispensable necessaries of life and civilization, and neces - 

 sarily in the general prosperity of the natioa. Intelligent inquiry into 

 the most rational means best to be adopted for the maintenance of an 

 even balance of the scale of cause and effect or of perpetual supply 

 and want is therefore by no means so chimerical a proposition as many 

 seem to think, who delight to ridicule the warning voices frequently 

 heard amidst the irresistible and boisterous current of the develop- 

 ment and clearing up of even the remotest ends of our common country. 



The laws of nature are immutable and they cannot be ignored or 

 wilfully counteracted without inflicting consequences which the tres- 

 passer may easily foresee, be he a humble individual or the smartest 

 nation on the face of earth. The majestic rivers of America will not 

 maintain their wonted volumes of water if the mountain ranges in 

 which their untold fountain heads are hidden beneath the shade of 

 mighty forests are recklessly denuded and given up to the cattle kings 

 and their minions. Wholesale destruction of forests covering moun- 

 tainous regions will not merely dry up the living waters springing from 

 the bo30in of mother earth, but cause spasmodic floods to break loose 

 upon the fertile lowlands, spreading ruin and devastation over hun- 

 dreds of miles of territory along their course. 



Wise legislation for the protection of forest districts directly tribu- 

 tary to a perpetual flow of living water is surely one of the most im- 

 perative necessities of our fabric of political economy, a question in 

 which the National as well as State governments are equally interested. 

 Next in importance is the protection of the forest districts at large 



