FOREST DEMANDS 37 



impoverish the soil, but actually enrich it. Every one hav- 

 ing had experience knows that newly cleared land is more 

 fertile and more easily worked than fields long tilled, un- 

 less the latter have been fertilized artificially. It is true that 

 when the forest crop is harvested there is a large amount 

 of wood removed, but no great quantity of the elements of 

 fertility required for farm crops is taken away. The com- 

 position of wood shows that. Approximately one half of the 

 wood is carbon, forty-two per cent oxygen, six per cent 

 hydrogen, and only one per cent nitrogen and the same 

 amount mineral ash. The nitrogen and what potash and 

 phosphoric acid there may be in the mineral ash are all the 

 important elements of fertility for the agriculturist that are 

 taken from the land from the time the tree springs from 

 the seed until it is harvested, and all that time it has 

 been giving more to the soil in its decaying leaves than it 

 has taken, while a crop of wheat will take twice as much 

 in one year and return nothing. Neither do trees require as 

 much surface moisture as farm crops. While it is true that 

 some of the water falling on the trees never reaches the 

 ground and is evaporated from the leaves, twigs, and limbs, 

 there is enough falling on it to keep it moist much longer 

 than in the open .field, owing to the protection of the sur- 

 face, from the sun and wind, by the foliage and forest 

 floor. 



