9 



where for their supplies, unless a better policy in regard to them be speedily 

 adopted. 



The state of Illinois is familiarly known as the "Prairie State," on ac- 

 count of the scarcity of timber. Large quantities of wood and lumber are 

 annually exported from Wisconsin to supply this scarcity of timber. So ap- 

 parent are the evils resulting from a want of forests in that state that there 

 is a very general disposition among the inhabitants to plant trees, and we 

 may in a few years find Illinois amply supplied and her fields protected with 

 forest trees. On the other hand Wisconsin, except in a few southern and 

 southwestern {ounties, is abundantly supplied with forests — so abundantthat 

 the chief efTorts of the inhabitants are directed to their removal and des- 

 truction. It will not be long if this course is continued before Wisconsin 

 will be groaning under the evils of a country exposed to the full blasts of 

 every wind that blows. Illinois will be the well-wooded, and Wisconsin the 

 prairie state. 



In Europe where these matters are rapidly becoming better understood, it 

 has been found necessary for the governments to manage and preserve the 

 forests. Forestry in all its details is a very important feature of the pro- 

 ductive economy of many of the states, and consequently much attention has 

 been paid to it ; the forests being kept with the cleanliness and good order 

 of a park. 



THE EFFECT OF CLEARING THE LAND OF FOREST TREES UPON 

 THE CLIMATE OF THE STATE. 



Temperature. — To become convinced that the destruction of the forests 

 would increase the temperature of the ground in summer one has only to ride 

 in an open conveyance, on a hot day, across a prairie or cleared country, and 

 then enter the depths of a dense forest. The change is at once apparent — 

 from the burning heat of the sun we pass to the cool shade of the trees, and 

 find a contrast so great that it must have been observed by every one ; it is 

 the difference between sunshine and shade ; and is so obvious that it seems 

 scarcely necessary to adduce arguments or illustratrions in further proof of 

 the fact that dearing the land of trees increases the Umperatwre of the grmmi in 

 the summer. 



It is not to be supposed that the sun supplies a less amount of heat upon a 

 given surface of forest than upon the same area of cleared ground ; but in 

 the former case the heat is intercepted by the leaves of the trees, and there- 

 fore does not reach the ground. Hence, although the mean temperature of 

 the summer as measured by the thermometer in the shade in the usual way, 

 may not be effected by Ihe clearing away of forests, yet the quantity of heat 

 that actually reaches the ground is vastly increased ; and it is this tempera- 

 ture of the ground, perhaps as much as that of the air above it, that effects 

 the growth of farm crops. 



Again, if one should pass in an open conveyance from an exposed or prairie 



