38 



conditions. Tlie forests do affect climatic conditions in their immediate 

 vicinity, and furtlier, tlieir influence is along the line of those changes 

 that would act most beneficially to agricultural crops. Tlie preservation 

 of the rainfall by the forests is also of great advantage to our agricultural 

 interests. These beneficial influences in Indiana are, in my judgment, evi- 

 dent only in the immediate vicinity of forests, and their removal has not, 

 as far as statistics show, affected the production of certain crops in the 

 whole State in any prejudicial way. The general disastrous effect will not 

 be evident for some years. The great richness of our soil and its general 

 suitableness for agriculture delays the certain penalty, but it is sure to 

 come, and then the restoration will be a long and difficult process. 



The annual yield of corn per acre has been gradually increasing in 

 the whole State during the last thirty years, as the averages for these 

 flve-y ear periods will show: 



1S76— 1880 23.55 bushels per acre 



1881—1885 23.48 bushels per acre 



1886—1890 29.77 bushels per acre 



1891—1895 30.4 bushels per acre 



1896—1900 37.2 bushels per acre 



While it is doubtless true that some of this increase may be due to 

 better methods of cultivation, yet it is hardly likely that this has produced 

 any appreciable change during the last ten years, while during that period 

 we have removed 509,045 acres of our forests, or more than one-third of 

 the whole amount that remained. The avea*age yield for each of the last 

 three years is larger than for any previous year in the history of the 

 State. Practically the same is true of our wheat, as these records will 

 show : 



1880—1884 12.3 bushels per acre 



1885—1889 13.2 bushels per acre 



1890—1894 15.8 bushels per acre 



1895—1900 12.46 bushels per acre 



This nearly steady increase is interrupted by the very low acreage of 

 1895 and 1896. when the yield per acre was below that of any previous 

 year for which records exist, and certainly this falling off could not be due 

 to deforestation since the three succeetling years returned to the normal 

 yield per acre. The year 1891 produced the largest yield in the history 



