104 FOREST PLANTING. 



THE REMEDIES SUGGESTED. 



Resolved. I. That we recommend farmers throughout the United 

 States to plant with trees their hilly or other waste lands, and at least 

 ten per cent, of their farms with trees, in such a manner as to provide 

 ' shelter belts or clumps, and rapid growth and useful timber. 



2. That we solicit the legislatures of the several States to pass laws 

 providing bounties for planting useful trees, encouraging the planting 

 of the highways, and for the provision of State nurseries of young 

 timber trees ; and also the appointment of an Arbor Day for the 

 annual planting of trees, as has already been done in the State of 

 Nebraska. 



3. That we ask our Congress of the United States to require, so 

 far as practicable, that hereafter railroad companies and settlers 

 receiving the benefit of the homestead and other acts donating lands, 

 shall plant with timber trees one-tenth of the lands so donated. 



Concerning the influence of forests on temperature, 

 humidity, etc., I make the following extracts from Marsh's 

 "Man and Nature": 



"Sir John F. W. Herschel enumerates among 'the influences 

 unfavorable to rain,' ' absence of vegetation, especially of trees,' and 

 says : ' This is no doubt one of the reasons of the extreme aridity of 

 Spain. The hatred of a Spaniard toward a tree is proverbial. Many 

 districts in France have been materially injured by denudation ; and 

 on the other hand, rain has become more frequent in Egypt since the 

 more vigorous cultivation of the palm tree.' " 



Earth presents the following view of the subject : 

 " The ground in the forest, as well as the atmospheric stratum over 

 it, continues humid after the woodless districts have lost their moist- 

 ure ; and the air charged with the humidity drawn from them, is 

 usually carried away by the winds before it has deposited itself in a 

 condensed form on the earth. Trees constantly transpire through 

 their leaves a great quantity of moisture, which they partly absorb 

 again by the same organs, while the greater part of their supply is 



