[23] 



becoming — how to makes homes of abundance on the yet unpurchased arid 

 lands, it is better to find out, if it be findable by science, whether we have 

 not all been following " a general concensus of opinion " which science will 

 not sustain, by believing that shade will increase the flow of a mountain 

 stream aa we were taught by the charming Ayrshire plowman, when he 

 made the stream say: — 



"Last day I grat wi' spite and teen 

 When Poet Burns cam by 

 That to a bard I should be seen 

 With half my channel dry." 



The conception of the poet was that the trees by their shade would 

 prevent evaporation of more moisture than their roots would take up. The 

 forestry committee reasons on that basis, but my observation compels me to 

 conclude that the Shepherd King of Israel was truer to nature than Burns, 

 and will be found truer to science when he said of a good man : " He shall 

 be like a tree planted by rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his 

 season ; his leaf also shall not wither '' * * * — Psalnis 1 : 3. 



APPENDIX. 



In order to bring before the mind of interested readers the ratio of 

 evaporation, table No. IV of buUeton 50 of the Utah experiment station is 

 inserted as showing the results obtained by two European scientists: 



TABLE NO. IV. 



According to Hellriegel, 330 tons of water would be absorbed by the 

 roots of clover, drawn up through the stems and evaporated from the 

 breathing pores of the leavRs for each ton of clover harvested. If the yield 

 be estimated at three tons per acre, the quantity of water per acre is 990 

 tons, or a volume sufficient to cover the surface to a depth of ^ feet, or 

 nearly nine inches. 



Hellreigel's results as to clover tends to explain why alfalfa, one of the 

 strongest growing of the clover family, is "always dry," not unusually receiv- 

 ing sufficient over the surface during the growing season in Utah to cover 



