422 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
—_— Ss 
[Dzc, 25, 1884. 
FORESTS AND FORESTRY. 
J 
At the early settlement of any wholly or well-wooded 
~“—™ country, the heaviest timbered lowlands are soon found 
to be the most productive, but their yalue is much impaired 
in the eyes of the settlers, by the cost of clearing away the 
timber, Every acre cleared is regarded as a triumph of 
man oyer nature; another step in the conversion of the wild- 
erness inte a garden, and it takes men along time to learn 
that the immediate richness of the soil and climatic condi- 
tions of fertility are as much the consequence as the cause of 
its past vegetation. Every generation of forest, every tree, 
in the chemical process of organic life, draws its food supply 
from soil and atmosphere, eliminating organic compounds 
of much greater efficacy as plant food than the original ele- 
ments from which they were elaborated; and converting the 
inorganic earths and alkalies into soluble salts immediately 
available as food supply- 
The axiom that forest land is worth a unit of value minus 
the cost of clearing the timber on it, isin time supplanted 
by the axiom that forest land is worth a unit of value plus 
the value of the timber on it, but long after the changed 
conditions haye stamped the second axiom with truth the 
traditions of the first ccntinue to influence conduct. The 
gradual decrease of the timber supply all over the country is 
not appreciated by the community individually, as long as 
they severally have no difficulty in supplying their immedi- 
ate needs. When at length the scarcity of timber makes 
itself felt, as it does in all cases where the public foresight 
has not been directed to the impending calamity in time, 
the costs and delay involved in the growth of fresh forest 
make the task appear so formidable that it has frequently 
been given up in despair. The immediate consequences 
have been a generally degenerate style of buildings, of im- 
plements, of everything in fact, for which timber is used; 
a permanent check is given to the progress of civilization, 
and slowly but surely the total destruction of the forests is 
followed by changed climatic conditions, the rainfall is pre- 
carious and diminished in quantity, agriculture is at length 
restricted to the low valleys, the once fertile fields are de- 
voted 1o pasture lands, a growing civilization is first arrested 
and then imperceptibly merges back to the pastoral stage. 
Such is, in faint outline, the history of the once vigorous 
civilization of Central Asia. 
Recent exceptionally destructive floods in the Mississippi, 
the Ohio and other rivers of this continent have been 
attributed by writers, who have studied the subject, to the 
wholesale (lenudation of forest areas over extensive regions 
drained by these rivers, and although precise local knowl- 
edge is necessary to determine to what extent these floods, or 
any of them, are attributable to the cause assigned, the 
problem is as susceptible of as exact determination as a 
problem in mathematics. The floods are duc either to a 
greater tain or snowfall over the region drained by the rivers 
in which they occur, or to the greater facility with which 
the melting snow or falling rain reaches the rivers; but what- 
ever the precise cause of recent destructive floods, the 
asserted influence of forest clearance in determining irregu- 
Jarities in river flow, has long been transferred from the 
region of speculation to that of exact science. European 
nations plant forests for the express purpose of regulating 
river flow, with as full confidence in the result as the farmer 
feels when he drains a swampy meadow. The Swiss Govy- 
ernment has just made a large appropriation for this object. 
We have not merely the evidence that wholesale forest. clear- 
ance is invariably followed by irregularity of flow in all the 
streams and rivers of the region, exhibiting destructive floods 
at one season, followed by dry beds or a sluggish flow at 
another season; but we have the positive evidence afforded 
py the reafforesting of the slopes bordering the Rhone and 
other European rivers, that with the growth of the forests 
the rivers are restored to their original regularity of flow; 
and the fact of the supposed connection having been thus 
demonstrated by experience, the mode in which forests exert 
their influence in this direction has been investigated and 
rendered familiar to all who have made the subject their 
study. 
Forests are far more essential to the general welfare and 
progress of a nation than is apt to be readily appreciated by 
a people whose growth hitherto is measurable by the area 
of forest cleared for cultivation, The maintenance of a per- 
manent supply of timber is essential to material progress. 
The regulation of river flow, freedom from excessive floods 
and maintenance of an approximately uniform depth of water 
throughout the year, are all matters of vast economic im- 
portance and directly dependent on the absorblive and 
retentive capacity of the forest floor. Forests, moreover, 
exercise important hygienic functions from their quality of 
absorbing carbonic acid gas, a substance generated by 
humanity in large-cities in quantities sufficient to vitiate the 
atmosphere, were it not borne away by winds and absorbed 
- py trees which decompose it, convert the carbon into solid 
wood and give back to the atmosphere the oxygen so neces- 
sary to the support of animal life. 
To say, as has been already implied, thut the destruction 
of our forests would be the deathblow to all the important 
industries in which timber is the raw material; that it would 
cripple our national progress by its direct action; that indi- 
rectly it would prejudice the agricultural future of the 
country by depreciation of the rainfall in the great interior 
asin of the country, and at the same time devastate the river 
valleys by excessive spring floods, and to add to this that the 
salubrity of the climate would be more or less impaired, is 
to advance a powerful array of arguments for the adoption 
of conservative measures, or at least of giving to the problem 
that immediate and serious consideration which its accepted 
importance demands, 
And this is not all. The material well-being of a nation, 
as of an individual, is the first consideration—the animal 
needs must be provided for before man has leisure or incli- 
nation to cultivate his distinctive human faculties, his 
moral sense, his intellectual grasp ot abstract problems, his 
sentiment of the beautiful. And while it is just and proper, 
in urging the nation to spare and perpetuate the grand old 
forests, the glory of our country, that the greatest stress 
should be laid upon their importance as a prime element of 
material progress and well-being, there is not an American, 
worthy of the name, so dead to every patriotic sentiment, so 
callous to the sense of the beautiful in nature, that he could 
stand by unmoved and see the picturesque fastnesses of the 
forest-clad mountains stripped of all that renders them at- 
tractive, and reduced to desolate wastes producing nothing 
for the support of man or beast. 
Some forest is directly essential to material prosperity, 
which is to a considerable extent dependent on forest pro- 
ducts. Some forest is necessary for the maintenance of the 
climatic conditions essential to agriculture. in all but the 
coast regions of the country. The average citizen who 
aspires to something higher than the mere gratification of 
his animal needs, wants some forests in whose calm recesses 
he may at times seek health and peace, and respite from the 
cares and toils of city life; and the patriotic citizen desires 
that his fatherland shall compete with the countries of the 
old world in the beauty of its scenery, in its facilities for 
healthy field sports, and in all those nameless but appreci- 
able influences which bind man to inanimate nature and 
give birth to the passionate sentiment of patriotism, always 
found in its greatest intensity among people at home with 
nature. 
Tn spite of the enormous importance of forests to our 
material and general well-being, recent inquiry has elicited 
the startling fact, not merely that the remaining area of 
forest is unequal to the permanent supply of our timber 
needs, but thatit is already verging to nearly an extinction. 
that we have not even a ten years’ supply of pine timber at 
present rate of consumption. 
Nevertheless, in the face of an impending calamity, the 
immediate and remote consequences of which it were hard 
to realize, the nation is rapidly drifting toward the inevit- 
able without an effort to avert, or even to mitigate, the worst 
consequences. 
The Government is still offering timber land at a dollar 
and a quarter an acre, which it will be impossible to replace 
ten years hence at fifty dollars an acre. To the intelligent 
foreigner it would appear, that the Government is without 
sense of responsibility, the people indifferent to the future 
of their country, Asa matter of fact, the industrial activity 
of the American people, resulting, as it does, in «a minute 
division of labor and concentration of the individual intel- 
lectual energy on special objects, is unfavorable to the care- 
ful consideration of questions affecting the general well- 
being. The great body of our citizens have no leisure to 
study the general or specially locai climatic influences of 
forests, no leisure to sit down and calculate the area neces- 
sary to the maintenance of a permanent timber supply, no 
leisure to collect statistics to enable them to determine 
whether the country possesses a forest area equal to its per- 
manent maintenance cr not. Every intelligent citizen knows 
very well that the maintenance of a forest area equal to the 
permanent supply of the national timber requirements is 
essential to our permanent prosperity, but he leaves the 
adjustment of the problem to the government of his election, 
whose special province it is to relieve him of responsibility 
in such matters. But the fact appears to be, that the danger 
has announced itself so unexpectedly, the problem is so com- 
plicated, that the Government, legislative and executive, is 
completely paralyzed in the face of it. 
Itis now four years since Professor Sargent, of the Bureau of 
Statistics at Washington, estimated the standing reserve of pine 
timber in the United States at aboul, two hundred and sixty bil- 
lions, leaving us now eight or ten years’ supply at present rate of 
cutting; yet grave as are the consequences involved in the 
threatened almost immediate extinction of this necessity of 
national progress, no remedial measures are being taken or 
even suggested. The fact is, the responsibility is too heavy 
for one man or one body of men, opposed as they necessarily 
would be by powerful cliques in possession of the forests, 
and fearing that their interests might in some sort suffer from 
measures designed for the national well being. The threat- 
ened calamity is as patent to the generalfpublic as to the 
Legislature, and if the people at large fail to respond to the 
movement set on foot by the New York Forest League and 
other associations for the same object, they afford evidence 
ofa national indifference to the future well-being of the 
country—of such an utter absence of the sentiment of patri- 
otism, that the Government may well be excused from put- 
ting its hand to the herculean task, which can only be 
accomplished by a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull alto- 
gether. No popular government can or dare attempt to 
grapple with so sweeping a Measure as is involved in the set- 
ilement of the forest question on a sound basis, without the 
assurance of public support, The direct sufferers from the 
st 
evils of reckless forest clearance in the past, the settlers in 
the valleys of the Mississippi, the Ohio, and other rivers, the 
merchants and steamboat owners, whose interests are 
imperiled by the growing difficulties of river navi- 
gation, should take the lead; but the evils in- 
yolyed in the neglect of the forest question are 
confined to no one class or classes. Setting climatic con- 
siderations aside, the mere annihilation of our pine timber, 
which, on the best available statistics, may be looked for 
eight years hence, constitutes a calamity of such wide-spread 
national importance, as to involve all other interests in its 
consequence, and from Maine to California the national 
voice should be unanimous in its expressed determination 
to support the national and State legislatures, in well-con- 
sidered, comprehensive measures to investigate the forest 
problem, and place the forest administration on a permanent 
sound footing. The Government at Washington has pub 
licly announced an impending national calamity, it was 
announced without coloring, without comment; the bare 
facts were submitted to the sovereign decision of the people. 
The Government has done its duty, it is now fer the people’ 
to announce its sovereign will, that this impending calamity 
must be met by comprehensive measures to avert its worst 
consequences, remedy the causes which have led to it, and 
to furnish the Government with the strongest assurances of 
its support in all well-considered efforts for the inauguration 
of remedial measures, It is no question of Class interest, 
the welfare of the nation is at stake, and whatever action is 
taken in the matter must be the outcome of openly an- 
nounced public sentiment. This question stands out 
prominently as a crucial test of the merits of representative 
government. Despotic governments have confronted the 
preblem more or less boldly—Germany and France with 
eminent success, and it remains for the United States to 
demonstrate, that the people at large possess as high intelli- 
gence, as rare foresight, and as strong 2 sense of national 
responsibility as the ruling classes of the old world. 
The evil has been neglected too lonz—is tco deep seated to 
be remedied by any act of the Legislature. Nine-tenths of 
the forest property of the country has been squandered 
away, the other tenth is for the most part in the hands of 
private individuals, who claim their right to complete the 
ruin within the next decade. No act of the Legislature can 
redeem the lost nine-tenths for this generation; no act of 
Legislature, no scientific system of forest administration, can 
permanently maintain the present output. The nation has 
been spendthrift of its forests, and all that legislation 
can do is to provide for a prudent administration of the 
spendthrift estate. The keynote of reform in such a case 
is necessarily retrenchment—the adjustment of the output 
to the yield. Let the last ten per cent, be sacrificed, and 
the outlook will be a gloomy one, Oanada is at least as near 
the end of her resources in pine timber as we are, and 
although the Baltic provinces of Russia and the Scandi- 
navian countries are still producing a surplus above their 
home requirements, that surplus falls below the require- 
ments of England. There is no foreign source from which 
America can supply herself, and her supplies once exhausted, 
-she will not only have to face the necessity of growing fresh 
forests; but her resources will be taxed to the utmost, and 
her material progress be seriously checked by her dependence 
on high-priced and ‘less suitable foreign timber, while her 
own plantations are growing. 
Atmost CiLos—e ENoucH.—There appears to be a tendency 
just now to discuss the old and much mooted question of 
just what sort of a being that ideal creature the “‘true’ 
sportsmen may be. The consideration now engaging atten- 
tion is of how many birdsa man may legitimately bring to 
bag. Aside from all ethical points of view, it is certain that 
sometimes an empty game bag affords more satisfaction than 
one which bulges out with the trophies of good fortune 
and skill. .A dead buck will never again thrill the heart of 
the man on the runway, but the buck that gets away to-day 
may do his share in affording more sport to-morrow. In 
some parts of the country a deer or a wild turkey or some 
other like sought game is hunted year after year, and the 
sportsman who is fortunate enough to get. within range for 
ashot, even though it be unsuccessful, finds more satisfac- 
tion in that than he would in securing another deer or 
turkey. §o, too, some shooters have a special desire to bag 
some partieular species of game, and to send a shot after 
this is a deal more gratification than to fill up the game bag 
with other more common game. A well-known gentleman, 
writing the other day, expressed this when he said: “I have 
done but little shooting, as I take my gun and just loaf 
through the fields and woods and enjoy myself. I generally 
kill enough for my breakfast and a few to spare. The best 
day’s sport that 1 have had I did not fire a shot, but I came 
near getting close enough to a turkey to shoot.” 
Aprronpack Drnr Hounprne.—We have been obliged 
to defer until next week the publication of several commu 
nications relating to the hounding of deer in the Adiron- 
dacks. I is extremely probable that this subject will come 
up before the Legislature at the next session, and it is there- 
fore greatly to be desired that as much information about it 
be made available as may serve for a basis for sensible argu- 
ments. We repeat the request already made in these col- 
umns, that those who are cognizant of the facts will lay 
them before our readers. : 
