February 6, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



69 



mulated by an acre of herbaceous plants, or of shrubs — 

 namely, about one ton, or more nearly 2,600 pounds, of carbon. 



This ton of carbon to the acre represents, when expressed 

 in the terms of modern physics, a certain amount of " energy 

 of position" derived from tlie transformed "energy of 

 motion" of the solar radiance. In this state it is ready upon 

 occasion to give forth again as energy of motion its energy of 

 position. It is a wound up spring, a raised weight, a bow 

 upon the stretch. 



This ton of carbon to the acre represents, when expressed 

 in terms of modern chemistry, the product resulting from the 

 reduction of a highly oxidized substance — namely, carbon-di- 

 oxide. In this new form it is ready to undergo oxidation and to 

 return thereby to the inorganic matters from which it was 

 produced in the mechanism of the plant through the agency 

 of the sun's rays. 



When we reflect that the carbon-dioxide from which this car- 

 bon is derived exists as what is practically an impurity in the 

 atmosphere, irrespirable by animals, and that after its abstrac- 

 tion from the atmosphere there is given back to the air the 

 oxygen which is required by all organic beings for their respira- 

 tion, some of the intimate relations between animals and 

 plants become very clearly seen. Not only do plants prepare 

 food for animals, but they produce it from matters which are 

 deleterious to animals, giving back in this very process the 

 oxygen which the latter need in large amount. 



To those who are fond of looking at the organic world as a 

 product of development from very simple beginnings, these 

 relations between plants and animals are among the most in- 

 teresting subjects for speculation. Animal life cannot exist 

 under its present restrictions as regards food, without the aid 

 of plants ; hence, plants must have preceded animals in the 

 order of succession. But if we take into account the fact that 

 there are a few of the lower animals which are believed by 

 some observers to have the power, by means of a certain 

 amount of chlorophyll which tliey have in their composition. 

 to act upon inorganic matter precisely as plants do, the ques- 

 tion of development becomes all the more complicated and 

 interesting. These exceptional creatures, if their life history 

 has been rightly understood, share capacities belonging to both 

 the animal and vegetable worlds. But it must not be forgotten 

 that without the distinctive chlorophyll (or its active equiva- 

 lent), the living matter of the organism which we call a plant 

 has the same needs as that of the animal. In fact, large groups 

 of plants, among which may be mentioned the Mushrooms 

 and Moulds, are illustrations of this very fact ; they cannot 

 prepare food for themselves, but must have it prepared for 

 them by other plants. In many cases, of course, this food 

 may, through its consumption by animals, have passed 

 through many changes before it is presented for the para- 

 sitic plant to consume ; but these cases only serve to empha- 

 size the general statement, which may now be repeated in 

 concluding this paper: green plants produce all the food which 

 they themselves and animals require. The apparently simple 

 and yet exceedingly complicated process by which plants pre- 

 pare from inorganic material the organic food demanded by all 

 organisms, transforms inorganic matter into substance like the 

 very substance of the organisms themselves, and hence the 

 term assimilation is highly significant. 



Cambridge, Mass. George Lincoln Goodale. 



The Forest. 



The Forests of the Rocky Mountains. 

 T N a paper on "Rocky Mountain Forests," read at Atlanta 

 -*■ before the American Forestry Congress, Colonel E. T. 

 Ensign, of Colorado, estimated the forest-land in Colorado, 

 Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico 

 at about 95,000 square miles, or thirteen per cent, of the entire 

 area. This includes, he said, all grades, light and heavy, 

 valuable and inferior. The forests are mainly coniferous, and 

 most of them are on the mountain slopes, from 4,500 to 12,000 

 feet above the sea. Some of the foot-hills and mesas have a 

 scattering and inferior forest-growth, and many of the streams 

 are bordered with Cottonwood and a few other deciduous 

 trees. Large tracts in the mountains from which the ever- 

 green forests have been burned are now covered with the 

 Aspen (Populus treniuloides). Other extensive areas are wholly 

 denuded of trees, and the rocky, seamed and storm-beaten 

 surfaces are desolate and forbidding in the extreme. Crown- 

 ing all are naked mountain-crests and snow-clad summits. 



Except in a few favored places, the forests are not dense. 

 Compact and heavy growths of Spruce are sometimes found 

 at the highest altitudes, and on the slopes. The Yellow Pine, 

 the most generally useful timber-tree, seeks a lower level than 



the Spruce, and is usually confined to southern slopes in warm 

 and dry situadons. When the pine-forest has been destroyed 

 it is often not reproduced, owing to the prevailing arid condi- 

 tions. On northern slopes, the home of the Spruce, where 

 snow and moisture are longer retained, a second growth is 

 more likely to appear. The altitudes of the Rocky Mountain 

 region, inclusive of the valleys, plains and plateaus, vary from 

 680 feet above sea level at Lewiston, Idaho, to 14,400 feet in 

 Colorado. The approximate mean height of the Idaho and 

 Montana ranges is 8,000 feet, of the Wyoming moimtains 

 g.ooo feet, of the Colorado and New Mexico system, south to 

 the latitude of Santa Fe, about 10,500 feet. I have thus indi- 

 cated the great altitude of the region. It extends from the 

 British possessions to the Mexican boundary. At least seven- 

 eighths of its entire area lies north of the latitude of Atlanta. 

 As a result of its high altitude and northern situation, its 

 snowy mountains and extensive forests, powerful rivers have 

 their sources in this region. 



During the few years covering the rise of the mountain ter- 

 ritories gold and silver mining and live-stock growing have 

 been their chief industries, but agriculture is likely soon to 

 take precedence of the others. Its recent progress, fostered by 

 great systems of irrigation, has been phenomenal. Great agri- 

 cultural enterprises, similar in kind if not in extent to those of 

 Colorado, have already been started in all of the Rocky Moun- 

 tain territories. It is obvious that the demand for water, 

 already very great, will be largely increased in the future. The 

 recent action of Congress authorizing surveys to determine 

 what lands of the mountain and plains region may be 

 reclaimed with the aid of irrigation, the water-supply availa- 

 ble for such a purpose, and where reservoirs, canals and other 

 irrigation works should be constructed, should receive the 

 closest attention. In view of the agricultural possibilities con- 

 tingent upon such action, and of the need for the prevention 

 of floods in the great rivers, this movement for the storage 

 and utilization of water is of the first importance. 



But what, it may be asked, is the immediate connection be- 

 tween the forests of the Rocky Mountain region and its irriga- 

 tion systems ? The forests are the principal natural agencies 

 in regulating the flow of water. They prevent the premature 

 melting of snows, and protect and nourish the sources of 

 streams. Aside from their office in attracting moisture and 

 causing precipitation, it is evident that these forests, by reason 

 of their location and character, and of the surrounding physical 

 and economic conditions, are of vastly more importance for 

 the conservation of water than for any other purposes. 



Railway building in the Rocky Mountain region, and 

 especially in Colorado, offers a most serious menace to the 

 existence of the forests, and it is rapidly increasing. After the 

 tie-chopping legion come settlers, miners, lumbermen and 

 charcoal-burners, all of whom, in addition to their direct havoc 

 of the woods, prepare the way everywhere for fire. For ties 

 only the young, partly grown trees are used, and the consump- 

 tion for this purpose alone is enormous. And yet cedar and 

 oak ties, from the southern and Pacific forests, can be had in 

 Colorado at a cost not above one-third more than the native 

 pine ties, and they are in every way better and last at least 

 twice as long. Lumbering to supply local and ordinary- 

 demands would not, of course, be objectionable if it were 

 properly conducted. Under existing laws, however, most 

 flagrant abuses are perpetrated, and the forests suffer great 

 and unnecessary loss. Mining operations require a great deal 

 of timber, and in some of the older mining districts the sup- 

 ply is exhausted, and such material is brought from a distance 

 at undue cost to the consumer. The charcoal-burner is as 

 meixiless as fate. He spares not the smallest growth ; nothing 

 escapes him. Smelters consume great quantities of charcoal 

 in the reduction of ores, but it is not necessary, and at some 

 of the principal works little, if any, charcoal is usetl. 



The number of articles which can be manufactured from 

 wood-pulp advantageously is increasing constantly. Pipes 

 made from it and fitted with iron couplings are now recom- 

 mended for conveying underground all flinds not strongly 

 alkaline, or which are not used at a high temperature. These 

 pipes are impervious to leakage and practically indestructible. 

 They have been used successfully for distributing natural gas, 

 and the non-conductive properties of wood-pulp will make it 

 valuable for underground \vire conduits. Vast quantities of 

 Spruce and other trees are destroyed every year in the Northern 

 States and in Canada to furnish the material for the wood-pulp 

 factories and iron-pyrites used in the production of "chemical 

 pulp" are in increased demand. Wood-pulp is imported also 

 into the United States from Sweden and other North Europe 

 countries in very considerable and rapidly increasing quantities. 



