FOREST RESOURCES OF INDIANA. 497 



Forests of Southern Indiana. 



In an essay by M. B. Kerr upon tliis subject, the writer, after remark- 

 ing that the lands now in the tilled hill-country along the Ohio, would 

 yield a much greater income if the timber had never been cleared, wsays:' 



The farmers have discovered that by removing the underbrush and trash from their 

 ^^oodlilnd,and sowing grass-seed, they can produce as good pasture as upon cleared 

 tlelds ; and no farm is complete without an abundance of good, well-shaded pasture.'^ 

 * * * Many of the farmers of Dearborn County are now suffering great inconven- 

 ience from want of timber ; some, having none at all, are compelled to buy at a heavy 

 outlay for building and fencing, and are hauling coal many miles into the country for 

 fuel, where iwentj-five years ago a hundred cords per acre were burned in log piles to 

 clear the ground. The poorest lands for cultivation are generally the most valuable 

 timber lands, and would produce the best woodland pasture, and if such lands had not 

 been cleared the timber preserved on them would have been worth more at the present 

 time than all that hasever been realized offthem, the lands in their present state included. 

 This is about the average condition of Southern Indiana. The few isolated patches of 

 timber now remaining on the farms have been culled of the best trees until they are of 

 but little value except for fuel, and are so thin that they afford but very little resistance 

 to storms, and arc rapidly disappearing from being blown down and dying of wind- 

 shake. 



The velocity and destructiveness of wind-storms have greatly increased since the 

 country has been so nearly denuded oi'.' its forests. In 1873 it was estimated that the 

 corn crop in many counties was damaged 20 per cent, by t he destructive storms of July 

 and in the past year (1874) the damage to that crop was considerable in many places, 

 The meadows, grain, and orchards suffer greatly from want of the protection onco 

 aflbided by the Ibrests, in shielding them from the bleak winds of winter and early 

 spring. And it is an undoubted tact, that the droughts of summer are more frequent 

 and protracted. Streams that on the average afforded mill-power nine months in the 

 year, when the country was first settled, do not now afford it six months in the year; 

 that is, the volume of water in the creeks seems to be diminished at least one-third. 

 By this I would not wish to convey the idea that the general waterfall had diminished 

 one-third, although our snows of winter and rains of summer are less frequent than 

 they were twenty-five years ago. It is their irregularity that we complain of, rather 

 than the diminished quantity. The cleared fields, openiugs, and well-washed ravines, 

 affording no obstruction to the water, it passes off with much greater velocity than 

 when most of the lands about the sources of the streams were heavjly timbered ; hence 

 it is carried more rapidly out of the streams, and their flow is less regular. The radi- 

 ations from the treeless hills and plains soon bring the ground to a parched condi- 

 tion ; vegetation is checked, pastures are dried uo, and field crops are cut short. 



The effects upon the fruit crops are evident. In the first settlement of the country 

 peaches seldom failed to jiroduce a full crop; now they seldom do: failure is a rule, 

 rather than the exception. The same causes affect the apples ; the trees are longer in 

 coming to the beariug s^ate, the yield is becoming annually smaller, and the fruit less 

 perfect. It makes but little difference which slope of the ground is taken to plant 

 orchard or vineyard, unless there be a wind-break of forest. A bare bill gives no pro- 

 tection ; the wind pours over it as water passes over a dam ; but if the hills are capp«d 

 with trees, the windy cascade is resisted. » » » But aside from theories, within the 

 recollection of the writer, covering a period of about forty years, in this part of Indi- 

 ana and through all Southern Ohio the summer droughts have become much severer 

 and the streams visibly smaller, and we can attribute it to no other cause than destruc- 

 tion of forests without substituting a like agency. 



In a report on the flora of the Wabash Valley below the mouth of White River, 

 prepared by Dr. J. Schenck for the seventh geological report of Indiana, measurements 

 are given of a considerable number of forest trees which, although now exceptionally 

 large, can only be regarded as a remnant of a growth that was abundant when settle- 

 ments began from fifty to seventy-five years ago. The wasteful destruction of such 

 trees for a few pounds of wild honey, or for the crop of nu;s on a pecan tree, has been 

 frequent in former times, and may not still be unknown. 



' Indiana Agricultural Report, 1874, p. 281. 



' This practice will in the end prove ruinous to the forests, and should not be allowed 

 where permanence is desired. — (H.) 

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