332 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



as destructive in tliis respect as the civilized races, wlio have some care 

 to restore what is by accident or intention destroyed. In the Eastern 

 and Central States of the Union the great obstacle to easy settlement 

 was the heavy forest, but at the border of the plains the new necessity 

 is to build up what our habit lias been to wastefully cut away. But 

 the power of associated effort, of legislation, and of public opinion is 

 fully equal to the emergency. There is no natural obstacle so great as 

 to be insuperable, and particularly in the climate we find more to favor 

 than was expected. In the soil there is also the most decisive evidence 

 of adaption to forest growths, if we can only secure the presence of a 

 fair proportion of moisture. 



It can scarcely be doubted that forests are the order of nature lor the 

 amelioration of both soils and climates in the temperate latitudes. 

 They distribute and retain the water which, though it may fall in sufii- 

 cient profusion, is wasted in the sudden flow from a dry and bare sur- 

 face. They secure also such i)ermeation of the surface as is essential to 

 the decomposition of its elements, and to the formation of the soluble 

 products required in the nutrition of both plants and animals. Forest- 

 soils are always rich ; in those of the Central and most of the Eastern 

 States nothing could exceed the diversity of adaptation to valuable pro- 

 ducts in cultivation. Inequality of elements and irregularity of produc- 

 tiveness are the usual characteristics of the soils of open plains ; and a bel t 

 of heavy timber of deciduous trees, oven if lying beside the richest western 

 l^rairie, is found by the settler to exceed the prairie in productive capacity. 

 This is a direct consequence of the diffusive and permeating power of the 

 trees themselves ; not a condition created by original advantages. Such 

 heavy timber-soils will i)roduce one-half more of corn or wheat, in most 

 cases, than the prairie-soil lying immediately beside them. On the thin 

 and sandy soils of the Atlantic sea-board the pine or other evergreen 

 alone will grow 5 the intrinsic deficiency of mineral elements being be- 

 yond all power of correction. But even here the surface-soils were for 

 a time highly productive, when the primeval growth of pines was first 

 cut away ; and now the only renovation possible without undue expense 

 is through a renewed growth of pines. No spot of the plains so far 

 identified has soils intrinsically as thin, inferior, and deficient as many 

 of those that lie near the Atlantic coast from New Jersey to Georgia. 



CITY MILK SUPPLY. 



The milk supply of our cities is a subject of rapidly increasing impor- 

 tance not only to the consumer, but also to the agricultural regions which 

 are being called on to furnish this staple of food. It is but about thirty 

 years since our largest city commenced to receive milk regularly by rail, 

 and twelve years ago its longest line of milk supply did not extend one 

 hundred and fifty miles. Now New York receives daily from liutland, 

 Vermont, distant two hundred and forty-one miles, antl from Pittsfield, 

 Massachusetts, distant one hundred and sixty-seven miles on another 

 route. Three years ago. Saint Louis, with a population of 310,000, obtained 

 all its supply from its suburbs ; now an estimated proportion of one- 

 eighth of its supply is received by rail from distances uj) to ninty-five 

 miles. 



