10 ON RAINFALL IN A WOODED COUNTRY 



II. On the Quantity of Rain which falls in a Wooded Country 

 as compared with an Unwooded. By Eobert Hutchison, 

 Esq. of Carlo wrie, F.K.S.E. 



The important question of the influence of forests upon the rain- 

 fall, the temperature, and the humidity of the air in a country is 

 one so complicated, and demanding for its accurate solution obser- 

 vations both extensive and prolonged, that it need not excite 

 surprise that meteorologists hitherto, although admitting the im- 

 portance of such an inquiry, have taken no practical step towards 

 the solution of this interesting problem. 



From time to time, no doubt, attention has been called to the 

 subject, but only in a casual or very general manner ; and the fact 

 remains, that in the United Kingdom, redolent as she , is with 

 scientific inquiry, no society or institution has as yet given its 

 direct bent to the question of the effects of either the overplanting 

 or the denudation of timber upon the rainfall of the country, and 

 consequently in an indirect manner upon the health of the com- 

 munity. It is, therefore, satisfactory to know that this Society has 

 undertaken such an inquiry, and that through its exertions we may 

 hope for definite action being taken in this interesting and useful 

 line of investigation. 



For several years past, both in France and in Denmark, by the 

 aid of the Academy in the one, and of the Agricultural Institute of 

 Copenhagen, and more recently of the Government itself, in the other, 

 organised and complete systems of careful observations have been 

 going on, and already very interesting facts have been deduced. 



To some of the general results of these tabulated observations we 

 shall by-and-bye refer in this paper, with the view of directing the 

 attention of members of this Society to what is being done in other 

 countries regarding a matter of equal importance to our own, and 

 which must prove of deepest interest to themselves individually as 

 practical arboriculturists ; and it is but fair to state that much 

 of the subject matter of this paper is translated and collated from 

 the French reports of M. Becquerel, who undertook the inquiry and 

 observations for several years in different parts of the arrondissement 

 of Montargis (department du Loiret), and of M. Lacour Danois, who 

 was in 1869 intrusted with a similar scientific mission by the 

 Government of Denmark. 



