34 NEW HAMPSHIRE AGRICULTURE. 



"The United States east of the Mississippi contains about 

 live hundred million acres. Assuming one half to be timbered 

 land, and that ten million acres cover the actual annual con- 

 sumption and destruction, our woodlands will practically last 

 only another quarter of a century. 



******* 



"The following propositions seem to be well established. 



i. That the temperature is hotter in summer and colder in 

 winter than when the country was covered with forests. This 

 is a natural result of exposure of the soil to more active radia- 

 tion and consequent frost. 



2. The winds have a more uninterrupted sweep, and so the 

 country is both dried up and refrigerated. 



3. The rainfall is less in amount or its advantages are to a 

 great degree lost. Forests retain the moisture that falls and do 

 not allow it to go to waste. 



4. The humus in the soil, and the soil itself on the hills and 

 slopes, are washed away by the rains, and carried to the lower 

 lands, and to the rivers, a large part being lost altogether." 



Fortunately, in our own state we have awakened to the folly 

 of forest destruction, and are trying to avoid its consequences. 

 But as yet, our eyes are but half opened, and we are still pur- 

 suing it, to the injury of our climate, the diminution of our 

 water power, the waste of our soil, and the impairment of our 

 scenery. 



One becomes attached to the woods which he often visits and 

 cares for. There is companionship in trees, when he gets to 

 know them. They have interesting individualities and varying 

 characteristics. The stately pine, lifting himself above his fel- 

 lows, seems to assert supremacy over all about him ; the oak 

 stands ready for struggle and brave endurance ; the scraggy 

 hemlock boasts of no beauty and is of coarser fibre. Were we 

 to join these to companions of more delicate traits, as man is 

 joined in holy wedlock to woman, we might mate the pine 

 with the clean-leaved maple ; the oak with the wide spreading 

 beech ; the hemlock with the prim and delicate larch. 



If one seeks his best thoughts, he will be surest to find them 

 in his woods. A subtle spirit of good, as from on high, settles 



