342 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[November, 



on the vegetation, climate, waters, etc., of a 

 country; but has any one ever thought seriously 

 of how it will be with us after the disappearance 

 of our rich forests? Who ever took the trouble 

 to calculate how our finances will be affected by 

 being forced to export $500,000,000 annually, 

 merely to supply our own market with timber ? j 

 An amount which the merchant navies of the 

 whole world could not transport, as according to 

 the census of 1870, it is almost 13,000,000 cubic 

 feet in excess of their united tonnage. From 

 the absolute indifference shown by the au- 

 thorities and the greater part of the people, ; 

 one might almost be justified in presuming that 

 they believe it to be possible to exist entirely i 

 without wood, or that some day we might begin j 

 to sow timber as we do rye or wheat. But it ! 

 takes a century to grow a respectable pine forest. \ 

 Many, too, believe that when the United States 

 have lost their woodland, Canada will still be 

 able to supply us for centuries to come. From 

 personal knowledge I can, however, assert that 

 two or three years of supply to the United States 

 would bring Canada to the same stress as her 

 Republican neighbor. 



"A very near future must prove to our govern- 

 ment that it would have been a wise measure to 

 favor the introduction of foreign timber, instead 

 of banishing it from our shores by high protec- 

 tive duties." 



Already the consequences of this wholesale 

 vandalism in the treatment of forests and wood- 

 land, that not so very long ago seemed actually 

 inexhaustible, show themselves very clearly in 

 the United States, as regards climate, etc. It is 

 the same old story all over. In Spain, France, 

 Italy and Asia Minor, as well as in the United 

 States, a remarkably retrograde condition, nota- 

 bly in agricultural products, has been developed 

 since the destruction of the wooded districts. 

 Many Americans consider these devastations a 

 necessary evil — somewhat like one of those ills 

 to which all children are subject, and because so 

 many of the European countries have passed 

 through them, they consider it but natural that 

 the United States should go through the same 

 experience. They forget, however that at the 

 time when the wholesale devastations of Euro- 

 pean forests occurred, but few individuals were 

 cognizant of the evils they would cause; to-day 

 all the world knows them, in America no less 

 than in Europe. The Americans are under no 

 obligations to buy an experience which they al- 

 ready have. 



A report sent us by an undoubted authority 

 on the subject of American forestry, proves that 

 since 125 years the necessary moisture of the 

 soil in North America has decreased seven per 

 cent, every quarter century in consequence of 

 the wanton destruction of woodlands, and that 

 a further continuance of these must most seri- 

 ously affect the climate of the whole continent, 

 to the great detriment of health as well as of 

 the fertility of the soil. That the picture is not 

 overdrawn we can easily prove from the decline 

 of horticultural products. From many States, 

 in which but comparatively few years since 

 peaches were grown on free land, this luscious 

 fruit has entirely disappeared, and many other 

 garden products with it. According to the " Re- 

 port upon Forestry " Southern Indiana until 

 shortly had a regular peach crop, while now it 

 is the rule for such crops to fail — almost the 

 same is the case with regard to the far more 

 hardy apples and other fruits. Light frosts in 

 May and June are no longer a rarity; the wheat 

 harvest was in many places entirely killed by 

 frost; in others from 20 to 40 per cent, were 

 lost. In many States, in which at the commence- 

 ment of the present century spring used to 

 happen in February, it is now delayed until end 

 of April, and the growing of wheat has become 

 altogether problematical ! An official report 

 from Illinois, (July, 1879,) on the harvest pros- 

 pects, climate, etc., says that the crops had suf- 

 fered greatly from the want of rains in spring 

 and the continuing cold winds ; and the cause 

 of both is referred to the indiscriminate destruc- 

 tion of woodland. 



As a further consequence of cutting down 

 the forests must be mentioned the increase of 

 ground squirrels and locusts. The latter that 

 used to flourish on the woodless prairie lands, 

 have extended their devastations to where the 

 forests have been cut down or destroyed by fires; 

 the farmer that formerly lived in the woods 

 alone, migrates to where these have disappeared 

 into fields and gardens — the damage to grains 

 and fruits reach almost an incredible amount, as 

 the plentiful and good food makes this destruc- 

 tive vermin multiply unusually quick. 



In Southern California the ground squirrel has 

 become a veritable plague; in the Northern dis- 

 tricts it is less numei'ous. An interesting forest 

 in Northern California, that has its equal no- 

 where on earth, may be mentioned here as its 

 preservation is of the greatest significance, not 

 alone to California, but for a large part of West- 



