[20] 



inches of water evaporation between the grass covered and the bare soil, 

 during the days of one year on which evaporation took place. If the great- 

 evaporation was caused by the life and color of the grass and the increased 

 surface its blades oflfered to the sun's rays we may reasonably expect the 

 greatly increased surface of a growing forest will throw off a greater 

 amount of moisture by evaporation than will a grass surface. The ques- 

 tion whether this is so or not is most respectfully referred to the eminent 

 body of scientists to which the forestry committee belongs, and to the na- 

 tional experiment stations generally. The writer believes science will find 

 that trees not only extract water from a greater depth of earth than does 

 grass, but also give off during the growing season much more. The evap- 

 oration, we see by this table, was nearly thirty-six inches of 81 "418 that 

 fell. Could experiment be brought to the solution of the question, the pre- 

 diction is ventured that it will prove that trees not only draw much more 

 water from the soil than grass but that, drawing it from a greater depth of 

 cooler earth, they scatter a greater coolness from their leaves, and thus pro- 

 duce the grateful shade and pine-scented breath of the forests we all de- 

 light in. 



Leaving this subject for the present, I quote again from the consul's re- 

 port immediately following the tables I have summarized. He says: " In 

 addition to my previous remarks descriptive of the soil characteristics, it 

 should be borne in mind that every fleece of wool that is produced takes a 

 percentage of potash and other fertile matter out of the soil, and 'that 

 hitherto nothing has been done to replace these elements. As a conse- 

 quence, valuable herbage gradually gives out and is replaced by an inferior 

 output. For instance, pine scrub has seized on thousands of acres in the in- 

 terior of what was formerly magnificent pastoral land." The italics are 

 mine. I don't believe Mr. Cameron has got the true cause, though it may 

 be so in some thin soils in Australia. Pine scrub and that of yellow fir 

 (Douglas spruce) takes the land in eastern and western Oregon where a 

 fleece of wool or a pound of flesh never was extracted from the soil by do- 

 mestic animals. 



The consular report from which I have iust quoted contains much that 

 may be useful to the industries of eastern Oregon, which is the western 

 edge of vast natural pasture lands of the range states, and of which Oregon 

 yet has nearly thirty millions of acres east of the Cascade range, which as 

 yet, are neither reserved nor sold. For the certain development of these 

 lands to the highest possible u8e,'both timber and water conservation are 

 necessary under conditions which seem so nearly similar to those in New 

 South Wales as to make the examples they set us in their methods of great 

 value, as guides towards improving our own present methods. The report 

 shows that the natural condition of each district has been closely studied 

 as to the kind of stock it will best support. Heavy or light horses, heavy 



