90 North American Forests and Forestry 



the United States, where, on account of the reckless 

 destruction of mountain forests, all those unfortu- 

 nate consequences of excessive erosion, sanding up 

 of valleys, excessive low water and floods in the 

 rivers, and danger to the fertility of soils exist, 

 which are probably more familiar to the general 

 public than any other branch of the forestry prob- 

 lem. But for the country at large no such perils 

 are threatening. For all regions that are not 

 mountainous or in the immediate vicinity of moun- 

 tain ranges, the question of over-erosion is of very 

 little practical importance. This refers especially 

 to the vast agricultural States of the Mississippi 

 Valley and the Great Lakes country. By far the 

 greater portion of this vast extent of territory is 

 nearly level or rolling, and most of it is of such a 

 nature that from an economic standpoint it would 

 be a waste if much of the land were left to be forest- 

 covered. Yet even here, notwithstanding the long 

 and thorough settlement of much of this territory, 

 the aggregate of woodland is still very consider- 

 able. Nearly every farmer has a more or less ex- 

 tensive wood-lot, for the purposes of fuel, fencing 

 material, and pasturage of his cattle during the heat 

 of summer. Whether these wood-lots are usually 

 treated in the most profitable manner for their 

 owners will be discussed in another chapter. Here 

 we are only making the point that there is no prob- 

 ability of these regions being entirely deprived of 

 forests. 



Aside from the wood-lots of the farmers, there 



