FORESTRY. 439 
THE RELATION OF FORESTRY TO AGRICULTURE. 
J. S. HARRIS, LA CRESCENT. 
The subject of forestry in America is a problem that will not be 
put down. The interestin the subject is increasing every day, not 
only here, but throughout all North America; and the best and 
greatest minds of the country are giving the subject investigation, 
and bestowing upon it the thought and labor of their lives. 
The first home of the human race was among the trees in the 
“Garden of Eden,” and never since has there existed an ideal home 
without trees. They are welcome alike to the rich and poor, and 
just as indispensable for the protection they afford from the ice-la- 
den blizzards of the north and the scorching, withering winds ofthe 
deserts of the south. The first homes of free and enlightened Amer- 
ica were planted upon the Atlantic coastin a wooded country that 
for ages had been inhabited by barbarous tribes, who have always 
sought forests as their homes. The first work of our fathers was to 
destroy these forests, and the march of civilization westward has 
been marked with the most reckless slaughter of trees and robbery 
of the earth of her beauty. Trees planted by the hand of God are 
things of beauty, and a joyful heritage to them, that should have 
been handed down to their descendents. 
Similar scenes have been enacted in all civilized countries, and 
never a halt called until the danger line was reached, and droughts, 
floods, pestilences, famines and other calamities warned the na- 
tions that they must go no farther. In our country the destruction 
has gone on with greater rapidity than in any other country of the 
known world, The effect that this is having upon the climate and 
soil, rainfall and drought, and how much it has to do with winter 
blizzards and summer tornadoes, will be fully discussed by others. 
A few rambling remarks on the relation of forestry to horticul- 
ture, and principally upon that branch of it known as pomology. 
It is a well known fact that the best fruit regions of North America 
have always been, and still are, in the forested regions or in close 
proximity to large bodies of water. Itis equally well known that 
some of the once best fruit regions have deteriorated greatly—where 
once it only required the planting of the trees and protecting them 
against stock until they got old enough to take care of themselves 
to secure bountiful and unfailing crops of fruit. This was the case 
in the New England states, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. 
In those days nearly every tree planted lived, flourished and pro- 
duced fruit. Things have greatly changed since. Instead of the 
bountiful crops of former years, now, in many places, a full crop is 
getting to be uncertain, and a light or poor crop the rule rather than 
the exception. In the early settlement of Ohio and other states 
named, the site for the orchard was virtually hewn out of the woods 
and the fruit trees planted there, and the failure of the apple crop, 
was so rare that for the first twenty years of my life I never heard 
of but one instance. 
First, large areas of forests were only felled and cleared off to make 
room for fields for cultivation; but later, the timber began to have a 
