ANNUAL REPORT—INDUSTRIAL NEEDS. 27 
sparsely distributed over the surface of a countiy, materially 
and beneficially affect its climate. 
In a general way, they increase the fall of rain and thus in¬ 
sure one of the most essential conditions of feriility, as well as 
uniformity in the volume of streams for watering the lands 
through which they flow, for supplying motive powers, and 
affording better and more reliable facilities for navigation. 
By retaining, for gradual percolation through the soil, the 
water and snow otherwise soon carried off, they are the cause 
of springs, which in turn become sources of perennial streams 
and even of lakes, whose influence upon climate are palpably 
great. For the same reason they are preventive of disastrous 
floods. 
By this same retention of water and snow for the slower 
process of evaporation, they tend to keep up a uniform supply 
of moisture to the surrounding country long after it would 
otherwise be dry and hot. 
By affording barriers to strong currents of air they protect a 
country against the disagreeable and evil effects of drying sum¬ 
mer winds and arctic blasts. 
By tempering the suddenness of transitions from heat to cold 
in autumn, and from cold to heat in the spring season, they 
promote uniformity of temperature and the security of both 
animal and vegetable life. 
By promoting a desirable equilibrium in the electric ocean 
which pervades both earth and air, they tend to prevent 
those violent and destructive storms which are common on 
vast plains and prairies. 
As it concerns the economical value of the 'products of the 
forest, we need only refer to some of their leading uses to 
satisfy any reflective mind of how much the happiness, pros¬ 
perity and progress of a community depend on their abundant 
supply. 
Being outside the limits of the coal formations with which 
our neighboring states on the east, south and southwest have 
been favored, our dependence for fuel must be either on coal 
