PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 181 
Many questions are easier asked than answered. Yet the three thousand 
or more years of written history are crowded with records wherein nations have 
been degraded and dispersed after the silent action of forests had ceased, their 
uifluences having been lost with their destruction. The most powerful forces of 
nature are silent forces, as witness the unexplained and unexplainable electric cur- 
rent. Controlled by man, it moves his machinery, transports his messages deep 
under the sea or over distant mountains, and carries his voice across a continent. 
Controlled by nature, it guides the air currents laden with moisture, which is de- 
posited upon the earth with systematic regularity, while uncontrolled it vents its 
fury upon the oak or any object which intervenes in its pathway. 
Witness the power of gravitation, moving the heavenly bodies with precision 
in their courses, or bringing the apple to the ground. Recall the influence of the 
moon upon the tides. Yet not the least is the wonderful influence of the trees, 
acting through electrical energies upon all the powers of nature. 
These questions have been discussed in ARBoORICULTURE with frequency, and 
are available to any who wish to pursue the subject. 
IMPROVING SOIL CONDITIONS. 
One of the most important problems is the improvement of the soil of the 
State. 
A mountain range is slowly broken down by the frosts, washed far down 
the stream by the force of flowing waters, finely pulverized by the continuous 
grinding in its long passage to the sea, and is there deposited in the still waters, 
where it remains until by some of earth’s upheavals it is raised above the surface 
and washed by ocean waves. Under certain conditions this pulverized material 
may become stone again, while under other conditions it may remain as sand. 
Still it is not soil. To form a soil there must be incorporated with it large quan- 
tities of humus or vegetable material, and as this decays it becomes a fertile, plant- 
producing earth. 
Nature's every efforts are to produce plant life in the greatest profusion. 
First, the simple forms of vegetation are distributed, the seeds in myriads being 
strewn by the winds. Then, as these decay, higher forms of plant life succeed, 
until eventually the highest types of forest trees are produced. 
Forests are important factors in converting this dead, inert material, pulver- 
ized granite, quartz, lime and sand stones, as they came from yon mountain range 
through these various channels to their present location, into suitable food for the 
nourishment of living plants. The roots of trees strike deep into the soil and 
subsoil, and dying, leave therein the carbon, nitrogen, potash and other elements 
of which they are composed, which aid in this soil-making process. The atmos- 
phere and water are carried down into the earth, following the many roots, bear- 
ing such elements as are contained in air and water, and thus both chemically and 
rnechanically is this process aided, 
The annual deposit of leaves, decaying branches, woody materials and annual 
weeds and grasses, incorporated with this sand, all add to the soil’s fertility. 
Forest trees are capable of reaching and assimilating those elements which 
are required for their support as they are dissolved by moisture, at various depths 
