328 THE ADIRONDACK FOREST. 
can afford them. The immediate loss to the public treasury 
from the adoption of this policy would be inconsiderable, for 
these lands are sold at low rates. The forest alone, economi- 
cally managed, would, without injury, and even with benefit to 
its permanence and growth, soon yield a regular income larger 
than the present value of the fee. 
The collateral advantages of the preservation of these forests 
would be far greater. Nature threw up those mountains and 
clothed them with lofty woods, that they might serve as a reser- 
voir to supply with perennial waters the thousand rivers and 
rills that are fed by the rains and snows of the Adirondacks, 
and asa screen for the fertile plains of the central counties 
against the chilling blasts of the north wind, which, meet no 
other barrier in their sweep from the Arctic pole. The climate 
of Northern New York even now presents greater extremes of 
temperature than that of Southern France. The long-contin- 
ued cold of winter is more intense, the short heats of summer 
even fiercer than in Provence, and hence the preservation of 
every influence that tends to maintain an equilibrium of tempe- 
rature and humidity is of cardinal importance. The felling of 
the Adirondack woods would ultimately involve for Northern 
and Central New York consequences similar to those which have 
resulted from the laying bare of the southern and western de- 
clivities of the French Alps and the spurs, ridges, and detached 
peaks in front of them. 
It is true that the evils to be apprehended from the clearing 
of the mountains of New York may be less in degree than 
those which a similar cause has produced in Southern France, 
where the intensity of its action has been increased by the 
inclination of the mountain declivities, and by the peculiar 
geological constitution of the earth. The degradation of the 
soil is, perhaps, not equally promoted by a combination of the 
same circumstances, in any of the American Atlantic States, 
but still they have rapid slopes and loose and friable soils 
enough to render widespread desolation certain, if the further 
destruction of the woods is not soon arrested. The effects of 
