STATE HOETICULTURAL SOCIETY. 405 



(page 44.) He further emphasizes the fact that we must increase 

 the absorptive power of the soil to cause aa increasing rainfall. 



On the other hand, in France experiments have been made which 

 seem to prove, for that particular locality, that forests have a 

 direct influence upon thesupply of atmospheric moisture and rain- 

 fall. In one instance, the result of six months' observations showed 

 the difference in rainfall in favor of the forest and against the open 

 country was 8 per cent, and in atmospheric moisture was 1.3 per 

 •cent.* It is clearly apparent that forests make the soil light and 

 porous, whereas prairies have a firm and compact soil; forests pro- 

 duce coolness and dampness of the atmosphere and hence rain, 

 Avhenever warm and cool currents come in contact. So far as for- 

 ■ests maintain coolness in the air they prevent that intense heating 

 which is the first condition of a cyclone, Yet terrible wind storms 

 occur in wooded districts, and to the north of the cyclone belt, as 

 the almest impassable windfalls in northeastern Minnesota show. 

 These two considerations mentioned seem te be uppermost in the 

 minds of farmers in discussing the subject of tree culture; but a 

 third, which seems to me to be of equal importance, has just been 

 stated by Mr. Phipps. of Toronto: "There is nothing now better 

 known to the world of science than the fact that any deforested 

 country will cost the cultivator at least four or five dollars more 

 per acre to obtain the same crops which nature would have assisted 

 him to procure had a proper interspersion of reserve remained to 

 continue the natural moisture and preserve the natural fertility of 

 the soil."t Such a statement appealing so strongly to the farmer's 

 pocket and announcing so heavy a tax upon his capacity for work 

 should be rung in the ears of every tiller of the soil until all 

 responsibility can be left with him. Therefore the briefest answer 

 to the question is. Yes. 



*Popular Science Monthly, June, 1875, p. 20. 



IReport on the Necessity of Pi-ocuring and Replanting Forests. Compiled at the 

 instance of the Government of Ontario, by R W. Phipps, Toronto, 1883. A work which 

 should be in the hands of every farmer in Minnesota. 



