26 THE VALUE AND MANAGEMENT OF [May 



They have much to do with the flow of streams, and so with all the 

 hygrometric conditions and influences connected with them. They 

 thus become potent factors in determining the character of the 

 climate of any particular region. They have therefore an important 

 bearing upon health as well as upon the agricultural, commercial, 

 and manufacturing interests of a country. Instances are not rare 

 in which the removal of forests has been followed by insalubrity of 

 climate, and the restoration of the forests has been accompanied by 

 its corresponding improvement. The destruction of the forests in 

 many European and Asiatic countries has greatly lessened the 

 agricultural productiveness of those countries. Lands once teeming 

 with valuable grains and fruits have been made almost deserts by 

 the destruction of the forests which once protected them. Streams 

 which once bore the commerce of nations have ceased to be navig- 

 able, in consequence of the removal of the forests which formerly 

 sheltered their head springs, while the navigation of other streams 

 is becoming more and more difficult from year to year as the 

 destruction of the forests, in which their head springs are situated 

 or through which they flow, proceeds. 



It is plain, therefore, that while some forests may have little 

 commercial value, and on this account may be worthy of little notice, 

 and may not be reckoned among the items of individual or of 

 national wealth, they may be of the greatest importance in other 

 respects, and have a value so great that all the care and power of a 

 nation may properly be called into requisition for their preservation. 

 This climatic or meteorologic value of forests has only recently been 

 recognised to any considerable extent, though individuals — the more 

 thoughtful and observing — have seen it and taken notice of it to 

 some extent from a very early period. But as it has come to be 

 more widely recognised, especially during the last hundred years, 

 and more particularly still during the last fifty, many of the European 

 countries have made the management of the forests one of the most 

 prominent and urgent duties of the Government. In Germany and 

 France, especially, this is the case. 



Now, as to the value of our Government timber lands, to the 

 consideration of which this paper is restricted, only an approximate 

 estimate can be formed, for the reason that we know comparatively 

 little about the timber lands belonging to the Government. Strange 

 to say, the Government has taken hardly any account of its timber 

 lands. In the disposal of its lands the Government has gone upon 

 the presumption that they would be used for agricultural purposes. 

 In surveying them for the purpose of selling them, and so defining 

 their boundaries that a satisfactory description and location of them 

 could be given to the purchaser, they have been plotted by simple 



