222 



NEW ENGLA^^) 



FARMER. 



May 



this matter in many of our villages. It is ob- 

 lijratorv upon the farmers, the most numerous 

 and tlie most stable class in the community ; 

 men wlio are interested in every product of 

 the soil and in every improvement, should at 

 least manifest as nmch interest as any other 

 class. They can contribute to this kind of 

 improvement more easily than any other per- 

 sons. If they would retain their sons at home, 

 and have their dau<;hters become the wives of 

 New England farmers, — if they wo\d<l impress 

 pictures of beauty and pleasant scenes and as- 

 sociations upon the minds of their children, 

 which they shall delight to contemplate in after 

 life, let them engage heartily and actively in 

 this work. It is to be feared that as a class, 

 they have shown less taste and less public 

 spirit in regard to this subject, than might rea- 

 sonably have been expected of them. 



A brief reference was made in a former arti- 

 cle on the subject of trees, to their influence 

 upon the soil, and climatic influences gener- 

 ally. Until recently, these influences have 

 been very little understood. It is quite prob- 

 able that all the good oflices which trees per- 

 form in the economy of nature are not yet 

 known. 



It is possible that a want of trees may cause 

 the droughts which scorch the land at one time, 

 and the floods which wash away and drown it 

 at another, and introduce such wide and de- 

 structive changes. In a highly interesting and 

 instructive paper, read by Mr. Calvin Cham- 

 BKi'.LAix, of Foxcroft, Me., before the Board 

 of Agriculture of that State in the winter of 

 18()9, he spoke of tlu; vast changes which have 

 taken place over the ])resent thinly inhabited 

 districts of western Asia, northern Africa, and 

 southern Europe, to show, in the gradual 

 wohte of natural forests, a corresponding 

 change in climate. He says : 



"If we compare the present physical condition of 

 these countries with the descrijition of tliem by the 

 ancient historians and «,'e()'rniphcrs, we see the lux- 

 uriant haivests of cereals that waved on every field 

 from the Kliinc to the Nile, tlie vine-clad hillsides 

 of Syria, Greece and Italy, the olives of Spain, the 

 doniestic animals known to ancient husbandry ,— 

 all the.-e, the spontaneous or naturalized products 

 of these fair eliiiies, tin' cumulations of centmies of 

 persevering; labor,— all this wealth, has in extensive 

 districts been surrendered to lieliiless desolation, or 

 at least to a ^'reat reduction in bolh productiveness 

 and population. The forests have disappeared from 

 llie mountains, the ve.i,'ctable earth aecnnuilatcd 

 tln-oimh untold ages, the soil of the mountain pas- 

 tures are washed away ; the once irrigated meadows 

 and fields arc waste and uni)roduetivc, because the 

 reservoirs and the springs that fed them are dried 



up; rivers famous in history have shrunk to brooks, 

 and the trees tliat protected their banks are {;onc; 

 the rivulets have ceased to exist in sunnner, and in 

 winter they are torrents of terrible force. The de- 

 cay of these once rich and nourishing countries is 

 mainly the result of man's disregard of the laws of 

 )uiture." 



Estimates carefully made in several coun- 

 tries of Europe, determine the pi'Oper propor- 

 tion of permanent wooded surface to the entire 

 area at 20 to 40 per cent., varying with the 

 physical features of the country and tlie hu- 

 midity of atmosphere as affected by neighbor- 

 ing water surfaces. Under our rapidly in- 

 creasing population, and a proportionate de- 

 mand for wood as fuel and timber in the arts, 

 40 per cent, of wooded surface would seem 

 not to be too much. 



Taking a comprehensive view of American 

 forests, Mr. Chamberlain says : — "we find in 

 California no wood for a lever or a pick-handle, 

 better in quality than a pine limb. In the 

 whole western half of our country no timber 

 is grown suitable to make a carriage, a wheel- 

 barrow, or any kind of a farm impliment ! 

 All these are supplied from the East." If 

 this be so, how transcendently important it 

 becomes, not only to use what we now have 

 with the strictest economy, but to set at work 

 at once the most active measures to re-produce 

 more. This should be done for two reasons 

 which vitally affect our national prosperity. 

 First, the effect of trees upon the climate, and 

 consequently the crops ; and secondly, the 

 great interruption in the progress of the arts 

 from the want of fuel and timber. 



Mr. C. further adds, that "to learn of the 

 effects of trees on atmospheric hinnidity and 

 the crops of the farm, we need not look to 

 Europe or the far West. Instances are noted 

 within our own State, where contiguous farms 

 under different extremes of conditions, mani- 

 fest corresponding extremes of results, both in 

 fruit products and the grasses." 



One of the chief points which it is important 

 to secure in our New England climate, is to 

 prevent an extreme evaporation from the soil. 

 One way of securing this, is by the office which 

 trees i)erform in breaking up currents of dry 

 air which pass over the soil. All haymakers 

 have observed that the grass dries much more 

 rapidly when there is some wind, than it does 

 in a still, though very hot day. The moving 

 air carries along with it the moisture evapo- 

 rated from the soil, and thus the grass dries 



