192 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OP AGRICULTURE. 



of tlie forests has not been carried to the same extent as it has been in 

 the northern and western portions, and has not yet excited alarm. Those 

 portions were naturally heavily wooded, and owing to their diQ'erent 

 situation and the different character of their wood have not beeu drawn 

 upon, either for fuel or lumber, to the same extent as have the forests 

 of the North. But as the northern supplies for lumber have been found, 

 within the last few years, to be perceptibly diminishing, and their entire 

 failure within a comparatively short time is manifestly threatened, at- 

 tention has been directed to both the pine and the hard woods of the 

 South, and the lumbermen have been transferring their operations, to a 

 ■considerable extent, to that region. Large tracts of woodland have beeu 

 bought uj) for lumbering purposes, and the same wasteful metliods of 

 cutting and use have been adopted wliich have so long prevailed at the 

 Korth. Throughout extensive regions, where the forests have not been 

 visibly cleared away the finest timber has been culled, and already in 

 many of the Southern States, in portions which, to the traveler or the 

 casual observer, seem well wooded, it is difficult to procure timber of 

 the best class. Agents of great wood-working establishments of our 

 own country and of Europe have visited most of the accessible forests 

 of the South and Southwest and bought up the choicest stock of hard 

 woods. So far has this gone that, taken in connection with the reckless 

 consumption of these woods which has x>revailed, it has carried the price 

 up to a point which indicates their present scarcity. Black walnut, 

 formerly so abundant as to be used freely for fuel and for fence-rails, is 

 now quoted in the market at nearly as high a price as mahogany, and 

 the best cherry wood is but little lower. IJndoubtedly the States bor- 

 dering upon the Mexican Gulf and the Lower Mississippi have an abun- 

 dant forest area, much of which can be cleared and devoted to agricult- 

 ural purposes with manifest advantage in every respect. But this 

 clearing should be done judiciously and not in the hap-hazard way in 

 which it is now going on. It is none too soon for those States to take 

 warning from the results of the reckless destruction of forests in some 

 parts of our own country and in European countries, and begin to hus- 

 band their resources and so regulate the consumption of their woods 

 that it shall not impair their forest capital, but leave it in such amount 

 and so distributed that it may perpetually yield a sufficient supply for 

 the economic uses of the people, while also exerting its proper influence 

 in preserving a desirable climatic condition and ministering to the in- 

 terests of agriculture and commerce, as forests properly situated are 

 known to do by maintaining a desirable degree of moisture in the air 

 and an equable flow of the streams. . 



rNFLUENCE OF FORESTS UPON THE FLOW OF STREAMS AND UPON 

 FLOODS AND DROUGHTS. 



Whatever doubt there may be as to the direct influence of forests in 

 tlie production of rain, there can be none in regard to their effect upon 

 the distribution of the rainfall by means of springs and streams. The 

 responses received during the year to the inquiries on this subject made 

 by this division, confirm the conclusions arrived at by observations and 

 inquiries which have been made from time to time in this and other 

 countries. With one voice they attest the fact that the removal of the 

 forests from the neighborhood of streams not only lessens the w'hole 

 amount of water flowing in their channels, but renders its flow much 

 more irregular than before. In the case of the smaller streams, where 

 the forests adjacent to them or in which they have their head-springs 



