3866 RESTORATION OF THE FOREST. 
Restoration of the Forest. 
In most countries of Europe—and I fear in many parts of 
the United States—the woods are already so nearly extirpated, 
that the mere protection of those which now exist is by no means 
an adequate security against a great increase of the evils which 
have already resulted from the diminution of them. Besides 
this, experience has shown that where the destruction of the 
voods has been carried beyond a certain point, no coercive legis- 
lation can absolutely secure the permanence of the remainder, 
especially if it is held by private hands. The creation of new 
forests, therefore, is generally recognized, wherever the subject 
has received the attention it merits, as an indispensable measure 
of sound public economy. Enlightened individuals in some 
Iuropean states, the Governments in others, have made exten- 
sive plantations, and France, particularly, has now set herself 
energetically at work to restore the woods in her southern 
carried without hindrance to their destination, and this law, which has been 
a matter of familiar observation among woodmen for generations, is now 
admitted as a scientific truth. 
Foresters and lumbermen, like sailors and other persons whose daily ocecu- 
pations bring them into contact, and often into conflict, with great natural 
forces, have many peculiar opinions, not to say superstitions. In one of these 
categories we must rank the universal belief of lumbermen, that with a given 
head of water, and in a given number of hours, a sawmill cuts more lumber 
by night than by day. Having been personally interested in several sawmills, 
IT have frequently conversed with sawyers on this subject, and have always 
been assured by them that their uniform experience established the fact that, 
other things being equal, the action of the machinery of sawmills is more 
rapid by night than by day. I am sorry—perhaps I ought to be ashamed—to 
say that my skepticism has been too strong to allow me to avail myself of 
my opportunities of testing this question by passing a night, watch in hand, 
counting the strokes of a millsaw. More unprejudiced, and, I must add, very 
intelligent and credible persons have informed me that they have done so, and 
found the report of the sawyers abundantly confirmed. A land surveyor, 
who was also an experienced lumberman, sawyer, and machinist, a good ma- 
thematician and an accurate observer, has repeatedly told me that he had 
very often ‘‘timed” sawmills, and found the difference in favor of night- 
work above thirty per cent. Sed quere, 
