76 
Annual Report of the 
to provide fuel, an amount exceeding the net profit of the state in 
the great staple product, wheat. The import and inevitable 
effect of this drain cannot long he ignored. The struggle to supply 
wood fuel for domestic use, must soon cease, as it already has to 
provide fuel for maufacturing or metallurgical purposes. The effect 
is forcibly presented in the report of the commissioners of emi¬ 
nent citizens to the legislature of 1867, on the preservation of our 
forests. They maintain with all the energy of honest conviction, 
that the forests of this state have been wantonly and profligately 
destroyed, and that with strange fatuity the ruthless waste is uncheck¬ 
ed. Far-seeing economists, realizing the import of denuding a 
country of its forests, warningly present the history of other coun¬ 
tries as analogous to ours in the climatic effect of sweeping off for¬ 
ests, and claim that this effect is alread}' felt in the southern coun¬ 
ties of the state, in an increased temperature of the land in summer, 
and decrease in winter. Diminished humidity of atmosphere as 
forests vanish, evaporation and ultimate dryness increasing, springs 
diminish their flow, and inland lakes and streams are reduced in vol¬ 
ume by the increased rapidity of drainage. To this startling prophecy, 
made in this report in the name of Professor Lapham, of which the 
following is an extract, we ought to give heed. u But in the mean¬ 
time our descendents will witness another process equally exhaustive; 
the population will follow coal wherever it is to be found. * * * 
The working classes will accept the invitations of the master that 
bids the highest. That is what they must do, for it is the law of 
existance. * * * Cut away our forests, denude the state, and 
years are not far distant when the agriculture of the state will 
change to pasture and stock-raising. * * Men must then give 
place to oxen and sheep. * * Until that other and more distant 
day shall come, when the winds and drouth shall reduce the plains 
of Wisconsin to the condition of Asia-Minor.” I do not find these 
apprehensions are entertained by scientists, invariably. Professor 
Henry states that the tabulated observations recorded in the Smith¬ 
sonian Institute do not show any appreciable effect in the annual 
precipitation from the destruction of forests. Professor Newbury, 
in his report on the geological survey of Ohio for 1871, presents the 
same result in the ascertained volume of water in the Ohio River at 
this time, as compared with another period. Hayden, in his report 
to Congress, shows Salt Lake valley to be beneficially changed in cli- 
