DISASTROUS RESULTS FROM DE- 

 STROYING THE FORESTS OF 

 NEW YORK AND PENN. 



NOT ONLY AT HOME BUT CLEAR TO THE EAST. 



BY C. B. PARKER. 



Nature's laws versus man's selfishness and covetousuess. 



Under the former all things work for good and in perfect har- 

 mony; under the latter the equilibrium of order seems lost in chaos 

 and confusion, discord and too often calamity follow in the train of 

 wars, pestilence, famine, drouths, floods, etc. 



After an absence of more than fifty years from our native land, 

 New York State, the writer was privileged to spend the last year in 

 the haunts of his boyhood days from Rochester, N. Y. to Binghamton 

 and in Northeast Pennsylvania at Williamsport, Troy and Tomauda. 

 We were surprised at the climatic changes as wrought by the denud- 

 ing of the grand old forests of pine and hemlock with the irreparable 

 and disastrous results of controverting those stable and useful moun- 

 tain streams from useful mill power and stock water as well as being 

 notorious the world over for their finest of trout fishing. Under 

 nature's or God's plan the great forests of timber held the heavy snow 

 fall of winter as a gradual reserve of supply for these streams, and it 

 melted gradually during the spring and supported the streams to a 

 nice flowing condition of usefulness all the seasons, and the hum of 

 the mill was heard the year round in every neighborhood, and great 

 was the sport in fishing for the speckled trout; but, alas, the greedy 

 lumberman has stripped the hills of timber, and the snows now melt 

 all of a rush with the spring, and the little streams once so placid and 

 useful now are wild rushing torrents, overflowing their banks and 

 destroying property for a time, and as the snow is gone they ran dry 

 and present only a rocky bed the balance of the year, not even afford- 

 ing stock water, and many a natural spring and good well has "gone 

 dry" during the past two decades; ana notably, nature ever true to the 

 laws of cause and effect, just in proportion as these floods have pre- 

 vailed in the north so have our rushing streams caused the Ohio, the 

 Mississippi and their tributaries to overflow more than in earlier days. 

 And now for the remedy. Unfortunately this generation can re- 

 ceive but little comfort or relief, for it hath been written, "the soul 



