1871. 



KEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



223 



rapidly. In order, therefore, fully to appre- 

 ciate the important influence of trees in this 

 particular, persons must become aware of the 

 vast work that is going on in the soil during a 

 hot summer day. 



The average amount of rain that falls in a 

 year in New England is somewhere from 35 

 , to 42 inches ; three solid feet of water ! much of 

 which evaporates from the same land upon 

 which it fell during the summer months. Es- 

 pecially is this the case in the open country 

 where drying winds prevail and much land is 

 exposed by tillage. Hence the value of forests 

 as arresters of evaporation, or as barriers 

 against the sweep of drying winds. 



The earth is a reservoir of heat, and if the 

 air above it be dr)', the heat that is radiated 

 from it passes oif as readily as if there were 

 no air there. But a moist air prevents its es- 

 cape, and it is this provision in nature that 

 tends to make a climate even. If this column 

 of moist air were suddenly removed, un- 

 speakable calamities would follow. Prof. Tyn- 

 dall says "the removal for a single summer 

 night of the aqueous vapor from the atmos- 

 phere that covers England, would be attended 

 by the destruction of every plant which a freez- 

 ing temperature would kill." A traveller in 

 Spain relates, that in the valley of Grenada, 

 where the trees have all been destroyed, the 

 heat by day in the sun's rays was oppressive, 

 while the hoar frost was lying white in the 

 shade. It has been calculated, that, from an 

 acre of groimd, during twelve hours of a sum- 

 mer's day, more than sixteen hundred gallons 

 of water have been drawn up into the air in 

 the form of vapor ! 



What a charming and sublime operation is 

 this, and yet Avith what quiet power accomp- 

 lished ! How important is this wonderful pro- 

 cess to us as farmers, — nay, how indispensable 

 to the welfare and life itself of all animal and 

 vegetable existence ! These performances 

 are interworking with the action of trees. Their 

 united agency does its part in sustaining a 

 healthful climate and a fertile soil. Earnest 

 investigation only will reveal them to us, and 

 urge us to plant frequently, and liberally, 

 everywhere, so that our children may stand, 



"Amidst their tall ancestral trees 

 O'er all the pleasant land." 



In a future paper we pro'^ose to speak, 

 briefly, of the rotation of forest trees. 



SO^W ONLY SOUND AND PURE SEED. 



The annual aggregate loss on the farms of 

 New England by sowing unsound and mixed 

 seeds cannot very well be estimated, but 

 would undoubtedly be very large. It would 

 not be confined to the first cost of the seed ; 

 that would be trifling, compared with the 

 loss entailed upon the farmer to clear his 

 fields of the worthless plants which have been 

 introduced in what he has sowed for grass 

 seeds. Thousands of acres among us are 

 teeming in harvest time with thistles, docks of 

 various kinds, white-weed, bur-marigold, chic- 

 cory or succory, mallows, dandelions, fireweed, 

 buttercups, and many other vile plants. 

 These are so hardy that no amount of mois- 

 ture, short ol total submersion, or any amount 

 of heat or dryness, short of an actual blaze, 

 will stop their growth. They are as persistent 

 as a bull-dog, and defy all the common modes 

 of extirpating plants. They not only rob the 

 soil of the nutriment which the cultivated 

 crops need, but by their hardy habits and 

 continuous growth they soon exhaust it, so 

 that the cost of ploughing, cultivating, manur- 

 ing and re-seeding must be resorted to much 

 more frequently than would be required if 

 the weeds were not present. 



Weeds are greatly on the increase, and will 

 continue to be until some stringent legislative 

 provision compels their destruction in fields 

 and on the roadsides ; and until dealers in 

 seeds will separate all that come to their 

 hands, — the sound from the unsound, and the 

 true from the false. Some farmers, greatly 

 to their injury, will purchase cheap seeds, and 

 there are seedsmen willing to accommodate 

 them. Cheap and worthless seeds are some- 

 times mixed with those of a good quality for 

 the purposes of fraud. When convicted of 

 this it ought to be a State prison offence. 

 The only security in this particular is for the 

 farmer to purchase from a house of character, 

 and to pay a fair price for the article he re- 

 quires. 



In France, a farmer may bring suit against 

 his neighbor who neglects to destroy thistles 

 upon his land, or he may employ people to do 

 it at the other's expense. In Denmark, there 

 is a law to oblige the farmer to root up the 

 corn marigold. Some 500 years ago, a stat- 

 ute of Alexander 11. of Scotland was directed ; 

 against that weed. The statute is short, and ' 

 ably expressed. It denounces that man to be 



