12 HAND-BOOK OF TREE-PLANTING. 



yet left around the Great Lakes, we are making 

 the discovery that, having already swept away 

 the forests of the Eastern States, the present 

 draft from East and West together upon these 

 lake forests is rapidly extinguishing them, and 

 with them our last resource for a species of 

 lumber which serves, as no other does or can, 

 for the thousand purposes of domestic and in- 

 dustrial life. More than this. As we look back 

 over the path by which we have reached our 

 present position, and see what we have done, 

 and notice the changes which have taken place 

 in our condition, we are discovering also that 

 the trees have an intimate connection with cli- 

 mate, with temperature and moisture, with the 

 distribution of rainfall, and so with the success 

 of our agricultural industry. 



We are finding likewise that the forests are 

 closely connected with floods and droughts, and 

 so have a direct relation not only to agricult- 

 ure, but to commerce and manufactures as well. 

 And so the despised forests, of which we have 

 thought, the sooner out of the way the better, 

 now that they are so nearly out of the way in 

 many parts of the country, are coming to have 



