-20 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



and flowed through rivulets, making the 

 meadows green, is rushed through the great 

 rivers to the ocean, only to go through the 

 same round of being taken up by evapora- 

 tion. 



The volume of the great rivers, the Dan- 

 ube, the Mississippi, the Nile, the Khine, and 

 the Connecticut may undergo no changes 

 from age to age; for they derive their 

 waters from a large extent of country, and 

 droughts in one section are balanced by 

 showers in another. But the smaller rivers 

 diminish, the rivulets dry up and the springs 

 fail, except immediately after rains, when 

 they are swollen. Thus by the operation of 

 one law, the destruction of forests causes 

 the two opposite evils of floods and droughts. 



It is said that Humboldt was the first to 

 call attention to the probable consequences 

 of the destruction of forests. In 1800 he vis- 

 ited the Lake of Valencia, in South America. 

 By careful observation he found that in the 

 course of the preceding century, the level of 

 its waters had fallen five or six feet, and its 

 shores had receded a number of miles. The 

 neighboring mountains, he said, had been 

 formerly covered with dense forests and the 

 plains with thickets and trees. As cultivation 

 increased the trees were cut down, evapora- 

 tion from the surface was accelerated, the 

 springs and fountains dried up, and the 

 shores being low and flat, the surface of the 

 lake rapidly contracted. Some years after 

 his visit the War of Liberation broke out; 

 men betook themselves to fighting instead of 

 farming; the tropical vegetation, no longer 

 kept in check by man, again overspread the 

 hills and plains. The rain-water, no longer 

 taken from the surface into the atmosphere, 

 sought out its ancient fountains; the rivulets 

 reappeared, the waters of the lake began to 

 rise and overflow the plantations that had 

 been formed upon its banks. 



It is a well-known fact that the lakes in 

 the valley of Mexico have contracted con- 

 siderably since the old Aztec times. The city 

 of Mexico occupies its ancient site, but it is 

 DOW some distance inland, instead of on an 

 island, as formerly. This is ascribed to the 

 felling of the forests that formerly clothed 

 the adjacent hills. 



In tropical climates the connection be- 

 tween the forests and the supply of water, 

 and consequent fertility, is most apparent. 

 When the Spice Islands fell into the hands 

 of the Dutch, they were covered with a 

 dense growth of spice-bearing trees. In 

 order to increase the value of their monopoly 

 they commenced an almost indiscriminate 

 demolition of these forests. In consequence, 

 the islands were converted into barren 

 wastes, and they have not yet resumed their 

 former fertility, proving that it is much 

 easier to prevent an evil than to remedy it. 



Could the old Greeks have looked forward 

 into futurity, they would have seen double 

 reason to use tree-cutting and devastation as 

 convertible terms. In a large portion of 

 Greece the forests that once clothed the hills 

 have disappeareiu As a consequence some 



of tho famous fountains of antiquity now 

 flow only in song. Rivers of historical re- 

 nown have shrunk to scanty brooks, which a 

 child may ford. The Lernean Lake is now 

 but a stagnant pool, so overgrown by reeds 

 and rushes that the traveler might pass it 

 without being aware of its existence. Asia 

 Minor and Persia, and tho country from 

 Hurniah to Afghanistan, are full of warn- 

 ings on this subject. Italy has suffered less, 

 for her lofty mountains are yet the parents 

 of perpetual streams; but she has not es- 

 caped. The famous Bubicon has dwindled to 

 an insignificant rivulet. 



Palestiue, in the old times, was a land of 

 rivulets and fountains, gushing from every 

 hill, and was thereby distinguished from 

 Kgypt, which must be "watered by the 

 foot." The channels of its rivulets still 

 exist, but they are dry water-courses, except 

 in the rainy season. Their number is suffic- 

 ient proof of the ancient abundance of water. 

 In tropical climates, water and fertility al- 

 ways go together, and the abundance of these 

 dry channels, which were once enlivened by 

 living streams, is sutficient proof of the 

 ancient fertility of the Promised Land — a 

 fertility which must needs have been great, 

 in order to support the dense population, 

 which sacred writ informs us once peopled 

 its hills and valleys. But with the trees the 

 gushing fountains have passed away, and 

 ages must elapse before the best government 

 can restore the country to its old state. 



Our own country is too new, and our for- 

 ests are yet, in spite of woodmen and axes, 

 too numerous for the scarcity of water to 

 have become a serious evil. Like causes pro- 

 duce like effects, and unless we change our 

 procedure our children will suffer from our 

 wanton carelessness. We have no right to 

 desolate the country for our own temporary 

 advantage. Ko generation has more than a 

 life-interest in the earth, of which it is sim- 



ply the trustee for posterity. Every man 

 who has revisited his early borne in the older 

 states, after an absence of a few years, can- 

 not have failed to have noticed the diminu- 

 tion of the streams and springs. There is 

 probably no water in the brook that turned 

 his water-wheel. The springs in the pasture, 

 which he remembers as ever-flowing, are dry; 

 if a season of unusual drought happens, the 

 cattle must be driven long distances to 

 water, a necessity that was never known in 

 his early days. More especially will this be 

 the case if a railroad or an iron establish- 

 ment has occasioned a rapid demand for 

 fuel. The trees have gone, and with them 

 the water; the meadows and fields are dry 

 and parched. 



Let us be careful of our trees. Preserve 

 those that grow upon mountain sides and ra- 

 vine slopes, by fountain heads and springs. 

 A keen axe in a stout woodman 's hand, will, 

 in an hour, destroy what it has taken a cen- 

 tury to produce, and what a century cannot 

 replace. A few cords of wood are worth 

 something, but they . are of less value than 

 a perpetual fountain. A few acres added 

 to our cornfields will be dearly bought, by 

 cursing the land for generations with drought 

 and barrenness. In the eastern states, even 

 now, there is more need of planting forests 

 than of felling them. 



"Put in a tree, it will be growing while 

 you are sleeping," is good advice here as 

 well as in Scotland, and posterity will have 

 good cause to be grateful to those who foUow 

 it. In our newer states there may be no 

 need of this, but it is necessary that in 

 making clearings there shall be no wanton 

 waste. Spare the trees, then — not merely 

 the one which "sheltered you in childhood," 

 but every tree for the destruction of which 

 you can show no good and sufficient reason. 



MAKK L. HYDOX. 



Interchangeable Woods, 



The truth that all things are not what 

 they seem is exemplified in woodcraft as 

 well as in other lines of trade and traffic. 



The deception does not always depend upon 

 the disguise of stains. It is true that the 

 advent of the great variety of stains has 

 made it easier to match the various woods, 

 and that in a majority of cases a similar 

 texture of wood and relatively near pattern 

 of grain wiU permit of satisfactory match- 

 ing, regardless of original difference in color. 

 In the case of stained woods of different 

 kinds that are required to match up, it is 

 often necessary to vary the stain in order 

 to produce the same effect. The grain of 

 yellow pine and that of cypress may be of so 

 similar a character that when the stain is 

 properly applied it will be impossible to tell 

 one from the other, but as cypress stains 

 more freely and more clearly than pine, it is 

 necessary to weaken one stain and strengthen 

 the other in order to produce a uniform ef- 

 fect. Selected grain in yellow pine may so 



closely resemble plain oak under a dark 

 antique stain that at a distance of ten feet 

 or more the average woodworker or painter 

 could not tell the difference. 



Substituting birch for mahogany is a 

 practice that ordinarily will not fool a mill- 

 man, even after the stain and varnish has 

 been applied, for with the exception of very 

 flat plain grain in mahogany and the same 

 kind of grain in red birch, the two woods 

 are easily identified. The more or less regu- 

 lar markings of curly birch which, under 

 a dark mahogany stain give that rich tiger 

 effect, are quite characteristic and are not 

 found in mahogany. 



It is possible to substitute white or 

 sap birch for hard maple in cases where a 

 slightly softer wood is permissible, and while 

 it does not show the little flakes in the quar- 

 ter as does the hard maple, the flat grain is 

 not dissimilar in figure or color. 



One of the substitutes for birch is tupelo 

 gum, and especially when only the sap is 



