39° 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [October t, i88r. 
to raise the bark, so that the thinned end of the 
scion may be introduced without being bruised. The 
edges of the bark on each side are then brought close 
to the scion, and the whole is bound with matting 
and clayed. When the stock is large, in order that 
its top may be soon healed over, and in case of a 
single graft, a, failing, two others are introduced at 
S and c. It is to bf observed that although the scion 
may be pared flat on the side intended to be placed 
next the wood of the stock, yet the latter being cir- 
cular, the fiat cut face of the scion can only be in 
part closely applied to it ; for a perfectly flat surface 
can only touch the circumference of a cylinder longi- 
tudinally along one line. Therefore, if the central 
portion of the flit cut face of the scion touch the 
wood of the stock or layer of cambium, the edges of 
the inner bark can scarcely do so, and the organiz- 
ing cellular substance of the stock must accumulate 
towards the edges of the scion before it can reach 
its inner bark. Instead of the scion being made flat, 
it woull better accord with the principles of graft- 
ing if its wood were made slightly hollow, so that 
its inner hark might be in immediate contact with the 
layer of cambium from which the bark of the stock 
was raised. If this cannot be done, care should be 
taken that the scion be at least cut flat, and by no 
means witn convexities. 
TREES AS A PROTECTION FROM HOT 
OR VIOLENT WINDS. 
(From the Indian Forester, July 1881.) 
The effect of forests in tempering and checking the 
force of the wind is frequently alluded to by writers 
on forest economy ; and if I quote a few of the 
passages which I have met with, it is because I thiuk 
that will be the most conclusive manner of testifying 
to this important rSle of protection which trees and 
forests perform for the benefit of neighbouring culti- 
vation. 
The Americans, who have often been reproached 
with the wanton destruction of their forests, are now 
endeavouring to re-establish them. A notice on the 
subject, by Mr. G. P. ' arsh, which occurs in the 
Revue des Eaux et Forits for October 1880, under the 
title, " Lereboisemtnt aux Etats-Unis, begins by point- 
ing out the value of trees to the settler on the prairie 
as a protection against the wind. The passage, trans- 
lated from the French, is as follows : — 
" None can better appreciate the benefits conferred 
by forests than the settler on the prairie, whose 
dwelling is ever exposed, as a ship on the oceau, to 
the fury of the violent and changeful winds which 
sweep across the bare and level plaius, where no ob- 
stacle checks their impetuous career. 
''Seated by the hearth in the depth of winter when 
his dwelling, buried in snow, looks like a mole-hill 
ia the midst of a vast expanse of moorland, he regrets 
that, when some 20 or 30 years ago he was selecting 
a site for his dwelling, he did not plant out with 
trees a few patches of hundreds of acres of which 
his holding consists. Had he done so, his house 
would now be snug and quiet, with a fine clump of 
trees to shelter it from the north-west wind. Hi* 
garden would not be dried up by the first dry wind 
cf summer ; and he would not see his fruit blown 
alt anil destroyed by the wind. 
» * * * * 
" There are very few among the pioneers of the 
far West who have had this forethought ; but the 
wisdom of those few is now so manifest, that from 
one end of the prairie to the other it is felt that the 
planting of trees is an object of public importance." 
is snowing the advantages expected from this plant- 
ing of trees, the last paragraph of the extract from 
The Scientific American, entitled : " Preservation of 
Forests," which appeared in th» Indian Forester for 
July 1879, may be quoted :—" Any Sta'e where these 
precautious " (planting groves of trees, quickset hedges, 
trees ou road sides, &c.) "should be generally adopted, 
would soon be so unmistakeably distinguished by 
the unfailing humidity and freshness of its fields and 
the abundance of its crops that the sheer necessity 
of competition would induce backward neighbours to 
try the same experiment, and before long the maxim 
would not only be generally recognized, but generally 
acted upon, that hu-bandry and tree culture are in- 
separable." 
This certainly points to practical benefit to be derived 
by agriculture or other cultivation from the planting 
of trees in their vicinity; and this, too, without its 
being necessary to establish extensive fores: s, or even 
to distribute the trees with the special o >ject of 
forming a productive belt 
Forests, too, are effectual in tempering the winds, 
rendering the climate of the place more equable. — 
{Baudrillart, Dictonnaire Forestvr. ) 
A writer in the " Independance Beige" of 18th June 
1865 thus describes the effect of forest trees : — 
" 1st. — They prevent the sun's rays from reaching 
the ground and heating it. 
"2nd. — By the expanse of branches and leaves thev 
multiply the cooling surfaces affected by nocturnal 
radiation. 
"3rd. — The upper layers of the air, cooled in the 
tree tops of the forest, sink, by their increased density, 
towards the earth, and thus is kept up a degree of 
cold considerable in its intensity, and thereby a well 
maintained moisture. 
"From what has just been stated it may be clearly 
deduced by scientific reasoning that forests lower the 
temperature of their locality and render the climate 
at once coolr and moister." 
I believe that these views are rather one-sided, 
and that the fact really is that, as forests absorb 
or part with heat very slowly, and as the air inside 
the forests is not renewed so freely as it is in the 
open, forests have an equalizing and regulating effect 
on the heat of the local climate, and tend to absorb 
the heat of hot winds and to give back this heat as 
the weather becomes colder. 
In the " Transactions of the Academy of Science 
of France" (Comptes Rendves) Vol. LX., sitting of the 
10th April 1865, a memorandum may be found which 
establishes the opinion that forests aff >rd shelter from 
the wind to cultivation in their neighbourhood ; and 
it is pointed out that this action is more effectual 
the higher the trees. 
It has been noticed in many countries that extensive 
denudation has caused hot winds in summer and hail- 
storms in winter. Thus the occurrence of hail-storms 
has been remarked in the vineyards of many parts 
of France to have been caused by the destruction 
of a screen of forest vegetation which previously 
warded off the winds and their attendant storms. 
A well known instance of the protection afforded by 
plantations of trees is the great work of fixing the 
rolling sand hills in the departments of the Gb onde 
and Landes, which wa» first effected by Bremontier, 
and is still being carried on. In this case not only 
had the wind to be combated, but the substance of 
a moving range of sand-hills to be consolidated, so that 
the wind should not be able to roll it, piecemeal, inland. 
The authority of M. Lorentz and Parade [Culture 
des bois) will, I feel sure, be admitted on this subject 
to be the best that can be adduced. Speaking of the 
climate of plains, (p. 21, 5th edition) we are told that 
"the absence of forests or other plantations makes 
itself felt (just as the total absence of large surfaces 
of water) by an increased heat and drought in summer, 
and in winter adds to the intensity of the cold." 
