22 FOREST TREES. 
in the months of May and June, insuring a crop of 
grass and grain, even if the remainder of the season 
was dry. 
Since the general appropriation of the soil to the 
use of civilized man, ponds and marshes, where the 
early settlers were wont to shoot waterfowl, have 
become dry land. The earth, rendered compact by 
cultivation and the tread of domestic animals, shorn 
of its vegetable covering, and nearly or quite bare for 
the whole or part of the Summer, absorbs less of the 
rain-fall, and parts with its moisture by evaporation 
more rapidly. Water from rain or melted snow is 
soon gathered into the channels washed out by the 
small streams, and speedily disappears from the face 
of the country. Extremes of wet and dry weather 
are more frequent, and the dews, condensed in dry 
seasons, are scanty. Instead of abundant rains in 
May and June, dry weather at that season is more 
common. A period of drought at the present day, 
commonly works far greater injury to crops than did 
a more protracted one in the early settlement of the 
country. These evils appear to be cumulative—to 
increase with the lapse of years. They may undoubt- 
edly be mitigated, perhaps wholly removed, by planting 
a due proportion of the country with forest trees. 
That the average force of the prevailing winds has 
diminished, or, as it is commonly expressed, the 
country is less windy than formerly, is a fact that 
must be recognized by all who have lived on the 
Illinois prairies thirty or forty years. The cause can 
only be found in the obstruction offered to the free 
