9 Canadian Forestry Journal. 



in 1904, and ascribes the failure mainly to the bare, unprotected 

 state of the meadows and grain fields. The w!o|ods have been cut 

 away to such an extent that the fields are exposed to the full force 

 of the sun and of every wind that blows, and the question is ask- 

 ed whether or not the failure of the past year is not in the main 

 to be found in this very fact, that the unprotected lands were dried 

 by the spring and early summer winds. One farmer told Mr. 

 Warburton that the only good field of hay he had was one at the 

 back of his farm which was well sheltered by woods and that 

 those not sheltered had been almost complete failures. 



Though the subject requires fuller investigation the influence 

 of sheltering trees on moisture conditions are very noticeable. To 

 quote but one instance of many recently cited in Forestry and Irri- 

 gation, from the results of experiments made by the Agricultural 

 Experimental Stations in Wisconsin in 1894: to the leeward of 

 a piece of black oak woods, of an average Jieight of 1 5 to 25 feet, 

 the results showed an evaporation at one foot above the surface 

 of the ground varying from in cubic centimetres at twenty feet 

 from the grove to 18.5 cubic centimetres at 300 feet, beyond 

 which distance the amount remained constant. ' The observations 

 were made during an hour of sunshine in the middle of the day. 

 Thus at 300 feet the evaporation was 66 per cent, greater than at 

 20 feet. 



Mr. T. M. Robinson writes from Gravenhurst, Ontario, as 

 follows : — 



" There are millions' of acres in Muskoka and this back coun- 

 try that are useless for agriculture, over which second growth 

 timber is asserting itself, and which would in a few years, if suit- 

 ably protected, prove to be of great value to the country. The 

 protection of the new growth of trees is a duty devolving upon 

 not only the legislators of Canada, but also upon the present gen- 

 eration of Canadians, who have reaped such a large harvest from 

 the woods of their country. 



" It is safe to say that in the forty years that I have known 

 Muskoka, the white pine has receded two hundred miles, with prac- 

 tically no effort to protect the second growth. I am pleased to 



