272 EFFECT OF WINDS: FAILURE. OF FRUITS. 



and a body of timber secured a fair crop over a still greater breadth, 

 often amounting to tlie entire field. 



Among tlie remedies proposed, the committee recommended the ex- 

 emption of timber belts of moderate width, running north and south, 

 from all taxation while left in forest. The needless waste of timber in 

 fences was also mentioned as avoidable, by amendment of the fence law, 

 under which the supervisors of a county might compel the owners of 

 stock to fence them in instead of requiring tbe neighbors to fence them 

 out. The planting of shade-trees on the roadsides was also suggested, 

 as so much toward the needed shelter belts, and clearly within the prov- 

 ince of law to encourage and require. 



Mr. Calvin Chamberlain, in a paper read before the Maine Board of 

 Agriculture (1868), in speaking of changes of climate in Maine, since 

 settlement, remarks : 



The first settlers in the counties of Kennebec and Oxford raised good peaches in 

 abundance. This fruit retired gradually from Maine, quit Southern New Hampshire, 

 lingered for a time in Massachusetts, and has finally been driven from all New Eng- 

 land, except some favored spots where shelter has been provided. 



Mr. D. C. Scofield, of Elgin, 111., in a paper read before the Northern 

 Illinois Horticultural Society (iv, CO), speaking of the influence of for- 

 ests on fruits and fruit trees, says: 



In the early settlement of wooded countries in this latitude, and etill further north 

 the i^each flourished abundantly, but as the forests were cleared away they as surely 

 failed. The api)le orchards are suflering, and, in a sense, barren, when compared with 

 their fruitfulness in former years, and no condition of the soil, either natural or arti- 

 ficial, within the scope of human knowledge, has secured a remedy. 



Fifty years ago the peach grew thriftily on the Island of New York 

 and on Long Island, and later, in New Jersey, where it has now become 

 uncertain, so that Delaware^ and Maryland now supply our principal 

 markets. We can scarcely suppose that any changes of soil have oc- 

 curred in noticeable degree, within the memory of living persons, and 

 must ascribe these changes to climate, and especially to drying winds 

 and spring frosts. The former promote evaporation, and the latter, 

 although coming on the same dates, and of the same degree, would do 

 more damage, because in an open country the snows disappear earlier, 

 and vegetation starts sooner, than where it has been retarded by linger- 

 ing snows. 



The value of woodlands as a shelter from sweeping winds is, perhaps, 

 quite as important as their influence in moderating the extremes of heat 

 and cold. If we enter a grove in summer while the winds are sweeping 

 over the plains, all is calm within, although the tree-tops may be swayed, 

 and we hear the commotion above, that scarcely affects the atmosphere 

 nearest the ground. The quiescence of this lower stratum of the air in 

 woodlands, is, in fact, one of the reasons why the evaporation from the 

 soil is there less rapid, and the humidity greater than in exposed situa- 

 tions in the fields. A careful observer has noticed a practice abroad, 



1 A writer in the Neto Torh Tribune (semi-weekly), October 6, 1874, in speaking of the 

 peach crop of Delaware, says : "Already we hear of failure to realize fair crops in that 

 State, owing to our old difficulties of the ' yellows,' and the killing of the fruit-buds by 

 excessive cold appearing in their orchards, and although I do not claim to be a prophet, 

 or the son of a prophet, yet I will venture to say that within the next ten years, peach- 

 growing in Delaware will be abandoned on this account, and our supplies will be de- 

 rived from Virginia, the recession of supply being continually to a warmer, or, rather, 

 to a more equable climate." This writer remarks a corresponding failure in api^les, 

 pears, and cherries, and attributes this loss of fruits to increased cold in winter, from 

 the influence of sweeping winds. He suggests shelter belts, or screens of some kind, 

 and the selection of sites for orchards that are sheltered on the northerly and westerly 

 Bides by woodlands. 



