and the influence of mountains, and otlier 

 modifying circumstances. The usual quanti- 

 ty of rain, for example, in our State, is about 

 45 inches a year at New York city, about 

 40 at Albany, about 38 at Buffalo, and about 

 33 along the St. Lawiance. 



We are equally justified in saying that the 

 restoration of timber after it has been once 

 cut off, tends to bring back the wonted show- 

 ers of sylvan times, and some instances of this 

 will be noticed. 



The celebrated philosopher, Humboldt> 

 towards the close of the last century, visited 

 the valley of Aragua, in Venezuela, which 

 lies land-locked, at no great distance from the 

 coast, but without an outlet, the drainage 

 being into a beautiful lake at the bottom of 

 the valley, some 1,300 feet above tide level. 

 The country around had been cleared and 

 settled, and the inhabitants began to notice 

 from year to year a wasting away of \ 

 these waters, as if they had found some outlet, j 

 Villages on the lake shore appeared to recede, | 

 and islands, before unknown, arose above the 

 surface. Tlie felling of trees which crowned 

 the slopes and crests of the mountains, was 

 assigned as the cause of the evidently decreas- j 

 ing amount of rain-fall, by which, says this j 

 eminent observer, " men in all climates seem ^ 

 to bring upon future generations two calami- 

 lies at once — a want of fuel and a scarcitj'^ of 

 water."* 



A civil war followed, in the course of which, j 

 agriculture was neglected, and forest vegeta- 

 tion again returned, so that a traveler twenty- 

 five years afterv/ards described the lake as 

 again rising, and plantations along its banks 

 submerged and abandoned. The streams, 

 which in times of former drouth, had been 

 drained dry for the purposes of irrigation, 

 were now in fall flow, the copious rains ren- 

 dering irrigation no longer necessai-y. 



In Utah we observe a somewhat similar re- 

 sult. It is well known to all present that ag- 

 riculture has chiefly been maintained in that 

 territory by irrigation, and that the construc- 

 tion and maintenance of canals for bringing 

 the mountain streams across the plains has 

 from the first been a subject of constant care 

 and expense. In 1866, they had 127,798 acres 

 under irrigation, and the amount expended 

 during one year was $303,863.77 or about $3.73 

 to the acre.f All observers agree that the 



* Humboldt. Vol. V., p. 1V3. „ 

 •I- uf this, $136,610.a5 was on canals, $3iviU-.-i< on 

 dams, $m 696.57 on cleaning out and repaire, ana , 

 $7^,853. 15 on private canals. Rep. Deseret Ag. ana j 

 Mfac. Soc, 1867, p. 2. ' 



climate is improving under the increasing 

 breadth of vegetation which this system of 

 cultivati on has created. IMuch less water is 

 needed than formerly to produce a given ef- 

 fect, the rain-fall is increasing, and the waters 

 of the great Salt Lake stand about twelve feet 

 above the old high water marks, and are still 

 rising. t The industrious Mormons have a 

 right to expect, that as the breadth of cultiva- 

 tion extends, the rains will increase in the 

 same ratio. That the air will become more 

 humid as trees are planted,, and that aself-sus- 

 taining amount of rain fall may in time be ob- 

 tained. 



These results afford a hopeful promise to 

 the treeless regions of the other territories 

 where nothing but water is required to bring 

 fertility to the soil, and with the vegetation 

 which this invites, a humid atmosphere and 

 showers of rain. 



The Hon. Paul A. Ohadbourne, President 

 i of Williams College, in an address before the 

 Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, publish- 

 ed in their report of 1871-3, (p. 61-9,) says, 

 that Salt Lake contains nearly or quite as 

 much water as it did when the Mormons came, 

 and that it has risen at least one foot a year 

 for the last ten years: 



" But it is not in Salt Lake Valley alone, or j 

 immediately around the lake, but in all the 

 valleys around there, and throughout thatter- ; 

 ritory, that the water is increasing m quanti- 

 ty Capt. Stover, who went from the State of 

 Maine, told me, that ten years ago he cut grass 

 on the borders of Stockton Lake, where now ; 



the water is forty feef deep When you 1 



pass up and down throughout the Territory i 

 as I have done this summer, you will find evi- 

 dence that in all the streams the amount of 

 water is constantly increasing, and that the 

 Mormons regard it as a direct interposition of 

 God." 



In speaking of this change, Mr. C. was in- 

 formed by Brigham Young that twelve years 

 before they had planted a settlement where, 

 by careful measurement, there was found water 

 for only twelve families. Now there is a 

 population of fifteen hundred souls at that 

 place and an abundance of water for all. 

 There is now much less timber on the moun- 

 tains and in the canyons than formerly. But 

 -the evaporation has been greatly checked by 

 cultivation and by groves of young trees. This 

 writer does not think that more rains fall now 

 than formerly, but that evaporation is less, 

 and the general humidity much greater, thus 

 checking'^he influence of drying wmds. 



> E.iiterial c irrespondence of the Country Gen- 

 tlemen, Nov. 27, 1873, • 



