70 YALE AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 



sive means to protect by means of trees, in France, Germany, 

 and England ; alluded to the advantages of forests as electrical 

 conductors and condensers thus of moisture ; spoke of the vast 

 stores of the sun's light and heat they annually store up, to light 

 up the long evenings for man, and of the denudation or wash 

 ing away of the soil when the roots of the sturdy trees were gone. 

 Restore the forests to the tops of our hills, and the moisture 

 would be restored to our air and droughts prevented. 



TENTH DAY. FEB. 11, 1860. 



The convention assembled at 9 o'clock, and listened to an 

 other lecture by Mr. EMERSON. The number of ladies in at 

 tendance was larger than at any previous session. The subject 

 was " The Individual Trees of the Forest." In introducing it, 

 he remarked that the feeling was common that the farmer's 

 was not a high occupation. There is no occupation requiring 

 such large resources of knowledge. Man can only prepare 

 himself for the proper culture of forest trees by studying them 

 in their native woods. The cultivator of the forest tree must 

 have varied knowledge ; of physics, in their higher depart 

 ments, treating of climate for we can do a vast deal to change 

 it most favorably ; of the sun's light and heat and their 

 action, a lesson seldom learned as it should be; of elec 

 tricity and the kindred forces; of the winds and the ^vaters ; 

 of the chemistry of soils and the proper action of their 

 elements ; of oxygen and hydrogen in water and the other 

 organic elements found in trees ; of the laws of the at 

 mosphere, in winds, rain, and dew ; of the operation of 

 manures and their adaptations. The forester must know 

 what soils will furnish the necessary nutriment, and to this 

 end must know the composition of trees. Structural bota 

 ny, one of the most curious sciences that the genius of man 

 has laid open, must be understood. So of endosmose and exos- 



