March i, 1889.! THE TROPICAL 
lamenting the destruction of a fine cabbage crop, 
by the early caterpillar, when the village newspaper 
had been publishing for six mouths a remedy that 
saved the crop of his moro distant neighbors. He 
did not take the paper, or read it, though it cost but 
a dollar. The world moves swiftly uow; everybody 
must read or be left, aud the farmer must read more 
than most men, if he would keep up with his occu- 
pation in all its branches. 
We copy au article on this subject, prepared by 
Hon. J. W. Lang, member of the Maine Board of 
Agriculture in 1873, telling what the newspapers had 
done for the farmers. If the newspapers will take 
proper iutrest in this great industry, it will be as 
true here to-day as it was in Maine then : 
What the Newspaper has done for the Farmer. 
It needs but a glance over the past to see the 
advance that has been made in farming. Improve- 
ments of all sorts meet us wherever we turn. And 
perhaps in no class of the wide community is the 
improvement so manifest as in the agricultural 
masses of the couutry. As a promoter of knowledge, 
the newspaper holds no secondary rank. Its weekly visits 
ever bring something new— some fact in science, some 
better method of doing things, some experiment or ex- 
perience teeming with usefulness ; and, further tbau 
this, its language, its tone, and its spirit, inducing a 
habit of reading and inquiry, acts beueficiallv upon the 
thousands who read and come under its influuee. Go 
baok thirty years and see the stat6 of the country when 
agricultural papers were almost unknown ; the Status of 
the rural population, and general information among 
them. We fiud the farmer without very many of 
the comforts he now enjoy*, pursuing the time- 
honored practices of his ancestors, without ambition 
to excel that now actuates the farmer of to-day. 
Wo see hiin following superstitions that are now ex- 
ploded, firm in his limited acquirements as the rocks 
about him, plodding on in old beaten ruts without 
using efforts to get out of them, couteut to let 
" well enough " alone. He was satisfied if his children 
got little education, enough to read ami write ami 
" cipher" respectably, seeing no use for those higher 
branches he did not understand, and supposed had 
ni> ,ise for. All this was perhaps well enough lor 
their day and generation, when muscle was called 
foi to subdue the wilderness and break down the 
■tubbon) soil. They served well the purpose of their 
day. Now, progress, resistless Yankee rneryy, has 
urged the former state of things out of the way, and 
inaugurated > new programme. 
The new-paper bus been greatly instrumental in 
this work. There in in human nature a groping for 
better things. With knowledge of their existence 
comes a desire to possess, and efforts for possession. 
So with know. edge of improve 1 methods iu farming 
came their application to practice. Improved breeds 
of cattle were heralded liy the press, their points 
discussed, and farmers enlightened as to their merits ; 
this led to He ir introduction. We see no slab-sided, 
long-eared rail-splittor iu the farmer's hog-pen. They 
have become obsolete through knowledge and posses- 
siou of better breeds. They do not pay, hence are 
not kept. The farmer of the present is a snug cal- 
culator. He has learned from his paper that farm 
accouuts are beneficial, and has adopted them. They 
help systematize his business, and from system and 
order arises thrift. The old "native" breed of cattle 
havo uoarly all disappeared, their places been filled 
wi'h thoroughbreds and grades of the same. The good 
and b.,d points of the various breeds have been so 
thoroughly discussed through the papers that almost 
everj farmer is well potted in regard to them. It 
has oome to such a pass ilia' every piper maintains 
its agricultural column, even our religious sheets, 
made, perhaps, more especially for sabbath reading. 
Tim general inclination toward farming and farmers, 
shows the tendencies of the tunes, and speaks volumes 
for agricultural progress. Most farmers have some 
idea of the mineral construction and elements of 
the suil, tho ultmcut* contained iu plants and ferti- 
luor*, which were almost wholly uuknowu thirty 
AGRICULTURIST. 623 
years ago. They are becoming somewhat acquainted 
with agricultural chemistry, and better understand 
how to adapt fertilizers to soils an 1 crops. 
The newspaper has discussed the se topics, and the 
farmer has learned them and been led thereby to 
seek other sources of information. Instead of or- 
chards with fruit fitted for little else than cider, 
we find now the choicest kinds. Small fruits are 
cultivated where before unknown, unless they grew 
wild and nncared for. The better varieties have taken 
the places of the old, and the garden presents an 
attraction hitherto uuknown. The home has been 
adorned by shade trees, shrubbery and flowers out- 
side, while inside books and pictures lend their charms. 
There is something deeper, pleasanter, and better in 
that family circle at the farmer's fireside than before. 
The newspaper, especially the agricultural news, 
paper, has left the impress of refinement and pro- 
gress in many a household, and yet its mission is 
just begun. The fnture is a broad field in which it 
will move on to new triumphs, new heights, and 
new usefulness. We all poorly realize what we owe 
the newspaper and public journal for the advance- 
ment science, agriculture and civilization have made. 
Take them away — blot them out, and we retrograde 
more rapidly than we have ever advanced. Let them 
be well supported, and thev will turn in and support 
us. — Maine Agricultural Report. 
♦ 
FORESTS, RAINFALL AND CLIMATE. 
The continued cutting down of the forests in this 
section of the country, and tne unusunl rainfall of 
the present season, suggests a few thoughts on the 
subject of forest influence on rainfall and climate. 
Surely grave responsibilities rest upon those pretend- 
ed scienti-ts who cau regulate the rainfall, the flow 
of the rivers and the temperature of the climate by 
cuttiug dowu or sotting out trees, as the case may be. 
Here in New Hampshire, where, in spite of the fear- 
ful warnings and the positive predictions of terrible 
droughts through the speeches and writings of weather 
experts, we have cut down and destroyed much 
timber and wood, yet in September, 188% we had 
1097 inches of rain, and in October it also poured 
down upon us in immense quantities. At the West, 
however, strange as it may appear to these scientists 
and weather regulators, where there has been more 
forests planted, according to statistics, than there has 
ever been on any other part of the globe, we have 
advices of terrible droughts prevailing throughout the 
Summer of 1888. Last year the West suffered greatly 
for waut of rain, and in September of the same 
year we people nf New England had but 'SO of an 
inch of rainfall. 
1 have been over the State of New Hampshire 
to a considerable extent, yet I am ignorant as to 
whom the guilt should be charged for setting out 
such a number of trees since September, 1887, as 
to increase our rainfall in Issm, from the -$2 of 
an inch last year to 10'97 inches this year, or 7'51 
inches above the annual average of a term of years. 
Tho pupers inform us that it is relatively as wet 
and cold this year in old England as in New England, 
while it is unusually hot and dry in the South and 
drv in tho West. Ben Jonsou wrote something as 
follows: 
Of all tho ills which human life endures. 
How few are they which kings can cause or cure? 
Far other wise is it in the case of our frieuds, the 
tree theorists and weather regulators; to judge by 
their publications and orations, most of the ills to 
whi' h human life is heir lies within their jurisdic- 
tion If any one doubts 'his statement let him turn 
to tho Xorth American Rrvinr of rectnt date, and 
learn from one of these scientists how much of thu 
earth has already been made a desert, and see how 
soon at tho present rate of forest destruction the 
wbolo earth will bo one vast Sshara. The picture 
is ono of thu most appalling desolatiou, and one 
which, according to the scientists, may be cutirvly 
avoided by growiug foreal trees. 
