STATE HORTICULTURATi SOCIETY. 209 



AFTERNOON SESSION. 



Third day^ Thursday, January 17th. 



Music by the Umversity Glee Club. 



Prof. Hall's address having been made the special order for this 

 afternoon, was then delivered as follows : 



[See appendix for this address.] 



Prof. Folsom. Can you give us something authentic on the 

 necessity of tree planting on the prairies to induce greater 

 moisture? 



Prof. Hall. It is the universal observation that in regions of 

 forests the rainfall is greater in the annual average, more evenly 

 distributed, and the climate more equable. The planting of trees 

 is certainly recommended to bring about these desirable results. 

 Nothing conserves moisture so much as vegetation. Nothing col- 

 lects and holds it better than a forest. Every leaf is a thirsty 

 throat, asking water. Blue-stem among the grasses indicates an 

 increase of moisture. 



Secretary Gibbs. It is the opinion of scientists who make a 

 study of forestry in connection with meteorology, that thirty per 

 cent, of our western regions must be kept in forests in order to 

 induce and equalize moisture sufficient for agriculture and to main- 

 tain our streams of water for navigable and manufacturing purposes 

 and also to offset the waste of moisture consequent upon the 

 destruction of the grasses hy cultivation of grains and by the drain- 

 age of marshes. It is also believed that the yearly increase of de- 

 vastating floods in our great river valleys and along the smaller 

 streams — even in the dry runs of our bluff lands — is due to man's 

 disturbance of the balance of nature by clearing the slopes at their 

 sources and along their inlets, and some go so far as to assert that 

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