1882. 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



278 



it has been supposed that Pennsylvania's lumber 

 interests had declined very materially within the 

 last decade, this State stands second in the list 

 in regard to value of manufactured lumber, 

 Michigan alone exceeding her. Wisconsin stands 

 third, New York fourth, Indiana fifth, Ohio sixth, 

 and Maine seventh. At the present rate of 

 manufacture the next census will witness a very 

 marked falling off in the lumber production, for 

 the very good reason that the forests will be 

 largely exhausted in many States unless, as there 

 is every reason to hope from the attention now 

 given to the subject of forestry, new forests shall 

 be extensively planted to replace the old ones. 



SCRAPS AND QUERIES. 



Railroads and Forest Fires. — '"M." says: 

 ^' Would it not be better for the Gardener's 

 Monthly to wage a war against those outrageous 

 monopolies, the railroads, than to argue for the 

 clearing out of the brush wood left by log cutters, 

 as a remedy for forest fires? We do know that 

 most of these fires are started by these public 

 vampires. Why not by law make them have 

 spark-arrestors on their smokestacks? Is this 

 not as easy as to make wood-choppers clear up 

 the trimmings after them ? Say ?" 



[In the discussion of these topics we do not 

 care to be in opposition or in defence of " vam- 

 pires," or of any other body of men, but to present 

 ■whatever facts may be obtained. It makes no 

 difference to the Gardener's Monthly on which 

 side these facts bear. Now as to spark-arrestors, 

 we fancy no person or persons would be more 

 willing to adopt the " spark-arrestor " than these 

 same " vampires," provided they could be so ar- 

 ranged as not to interfere with the draft of the 

 furnace ; but we fancy even " M." would growl 

 if he were compelled to travel across the conti- 

 nent at the rate of only fifteen or twenty miles an 

 hour, because the law made the " spark-arrestor " 

 imperative. 



Again, " M." should know that by recent legal 

 decisions a suit will not hold against a railroad 

 company for damages from fire where it can 

 prove " contributory negligence." Piles of dead 

 branches left under or near a forest, and which 

 catch from a locomotive spark, are not the 

 " necessaries " of a forestry business, and would 

 probably be deemed to be " contributory " to the 

 fire. 



The common sense of the question seems to 

 be that railroads should be made to use common 

 prudence, and so should everybody else. It 

 might do to compel railroads to clear up on the 

 land they own. In clearing out underbrush it 

 would not probably be necessary to clear out 

 where there was but little danger. If say 

 a quarter of a mile were cleared out around a 

 50,000 acre lot, the interior would probably be 

 safe; or, if a fire started inside of it, it would 

 then be confined to that tract. 



It may perhaps be unjustifiable to say what 

 one shall or shall not do to guard against fire on 

 his own wood-lot, but he ought to be made to 

 place guards around the fires that it shall not 

 reach his neighbors. — Ed. G. M.] 



Rainfall AND Forests. — " Meteorologist," Cin- 

 cinnati, says : " You are doing good service by 

 showing the absurdity mixed with the common 

 sense of meteorology in connection with for- 

 estry. That Utah illustration of the increase of 

 rain through Mormon planting when we know 

 that the miners destroy a thousand for every one 

 a Mormon plants, is an old piece of nonsense 

 which we thought shown up long ago. But on 

 the other hand, do not those who contend that 

 forests have no influence on the weather erect a 

 similar absurdity ? It should be understood that 

 no one claims a forest to be the sole cause of 

 meteorological conditions. There is no one 

 cause of the weather. Electricity may be a 

 great cause. The cause of the weather I take to 

 be made up of a vast variety of minor causes, of 

 which the forests are only one." 



[And yet not so many causes in one. There is 

 reason to believe that electricity is only a mode 

 of motion. 



The ''cause" of the weather is not complica- 

 ted. It is simply heat and cold, as shown in a 

 recent paper. The condensation of moisture 

 which results in rain, is simply the meeting of 

 two currents of different temperatures. A forest 

 may affect this to some degree, as our corres- 

 pondent says. An atmospheric current sweep- 

 ing over a thousand miles of hot sand, would 

 certainly be warmer than one sweeping over a 

 thousand miles of forest, but a few acres of forest 

 would have about the same influence as the 

 raising of one's finger would against the atmos- 

 pheric current which makes the moisture 

 trickle down an ice pitcher in summer time. — 

 Ed. G. M.] 



