268 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER.. 



June 



7. It tends to make our winters colder and 

 our springs later. 



8. It suffers water from the spring rains to 

 be wasted by rushing off in floods, carrying 

 with them the best of the soil, instead of sink- 

 ing into the ground about the roots of trees 

 and bushes. 



9. It diminishes the showers in summer. 



10. It keeps the little birds at a distance 

 from the fields, gardens and orchards where 

 they are needed. 



11. It is bad economy, by destroying trees 

 which are becoming more and more valuable, 

 from year to year, for fuel and use in the 

 arts, and for the fruits, — acorns, chestnuts, 

 wild cherries, walnuts, beechnuts, butternuts, 

 hickory nuts, shagbarks, — and by destroying 

 the shrubs and undershrubs which produce our 

 delicious and useful berries — whortleben'ies, 

 blackberries, raspberries and others, — and the 

 delicate hazelnuts. 



12. It diminishes our happiness by lessening 

 the enjoyment and the health of our wives and 

 children, and of those helpless and dependent 

 creatures which live for us, — the domestic an- 

 imals and the birds, — by robbing them of the 

 shade and shelter afforded by the trees, and 



13. It does much, in many other ways, to 

 diminish the cheerfulness and agreeableness of 

 our homes. 



Our climate has changed for the worse since 

 the original settlement of this country. It is 

 one of more fierce extremes. The hills, which, 

 clothed with their forests, are the natural de- 

 fence and protection of the plains, have, in 

 many places, with strange and thoughtless im- 

 providence, been stripped and laid bare, and 

 the storms howl and rage over them unchecked. 

 On the plains, the old, primeval trees have 

 been cut down, the groves thinned, the thick- 

 ets weeded away. Our broader fields are 

 dryer and hotter in summer, and the winds 

 over them are more unbroken, and hence, at 

 all seasons, more violent. Delicate plants 

 are cultivated with more difficulty than former- 

 ly. Cei'eal crops are more liable to be injured 

 by drought. The deterioration is constantl}- 

 going on. The thinning of a narrow border, 

 the cutting down of a single tree, adds some- 

 thing to the evil. 



All that can be done ought to be done, and 

 very much may be done, to check it. The 

 bare hill tops and their steep sides may again 

 be covered with trees. The poorest lands, 

 which hardly pay for cultivation, may be given 

 back to. the forest by carel'ul planting. All 

 the surface tliat can be found unoccupied, 

 every little nook that can be spared, should be 

 clothed or allowed to remain clothed, with na- 

 tive or foreign trees and shrubs. 



A bare, unprotected field has the winter's 

 snow swept olf and so freezes to a great depth, 

 and, by its slow thawing, materially retards the 

 spring. A surface carpeted with undershrubs, 

 such as whortleberry bushes, arrests the fall- 



ing or driving leaves and early snow, and 

 forms a fibrous blanket, to keep m the warmth 

 of the earth and keep out the cold. Thus 

 protected, the earth below this blanket does 

 not freeze ; the roots of the plants, large and 

 small, forming a porous, spongy mass, of con- 

 siderable depth, the lotjsened earth, under- 

 neath, receives and keeps the dissolving snow 

 and trickling rain, laid up, as in a reservoir, 

 against the hour of need. The early flowers 

 show that sprmg comes first to these sheltered 

 spots. 



Every thicket, every clump of bushes, 

 every row of trees, especially every broad rib- 

 bon of mingled trees, bushes and undershrubs, 

 does something to soften the violence of the 

 wind, to arrest the mists and rainclouds, and 

 to store up a little treasure of moisture, like 

 that just described, from the dissolving snows 

 and the rains of spring, and thus provide a 

 source for daily evaporation, to mitigate the 

 heat and droughts of suuimer. 



Whoever can look back for half a century 

 upon almost any country town in New Eng- 

 land, may remember many a little perennial 

 rill of fonuer days which has now disappeared 

 entirely, and many a brook which once ran 

 full through the year, but which is now, in the 

 dry season, reduced to a diminutive runnel, 

 whose music has ceased, and whose course is 

 indicated only by scattered, stagnant pools or 

 by a greener line through the meadow. The 

 change from worse to worse, from dry to 

 dryer, is still going on. 



To stay the evil, to restore the rills, again 

 to fill the brooks, to bring back a softer cli- 

 mate, will require the co-operation of all 

 public spirited persons. Every one must 

 compensate for the mischief he may have 

 done. Whoever has cut down a single tree, 

 young or old, must set out two to take its 

 place ; whoever has uprooted an old, broad- 

 headed tree, such as an ancient chestnut or 

 oak, ought to feel bound to plant at least ten 

 young ones. Whoever has been, directly or 

 indirectly, instrumental in defacing the road- 

 side, by destroying such a border as we have 

 been speaking of, ought to hold himself re- 

 sponsible for another as beautiful and as pre- 

 cious. Whoever has an acre of land, the cul- 

 tivation of Avhich pays poorly, will, if he has 

 an eye to his interest, plant it with such valu- 

 able trees as will flourish there best ; or, if it 

 lie on the edge of a forest, he will let it plant 

 itself with acorns, seeds or nuts from the for- 

 est, only taking care that the young trees shall 

 not be nibbled down and killed by cattle or 

 sheep. The owner or owners of a bare, un- 

 sightly hill must assume wisdom enough to 

 manage that with etjual foresight. The reward 

 will not be the mere gratification of a sense of 

 the beautiful. While labor is so dear as it 

 now is, it must be economy to raise eighty 

 1)usIk'1s of corn on an acre, instead of thirty, 

 to cut three tons of hay instead of one, both 

 of which will be the natural consequence of 



