The Kentucky Gazette

FORESTS.

The destruction of forests which once clothed a large portion of the area of this country, is producing the most disastrous effects, not only upon streams and rainfall, but is having serious climatic influences. This subject is engaging the attention of thoughtful men everywhere. The World says the demands which have been made upon the forests of our country for building timber and fire-wood have been enormous at all times, and have been steadily growing of late. Whole tracts of country have been cleared of every tree within the memory of men now living. This wholesale destruction of our forests has been confined to no section of the country in particular. It has occurred in Maine and in Oregon, and in Massachusetts as in Texas. The South, from various causes, has suffered less than other portions of the United States. With the exception of Virginia, where the armies burned up everything from a rail fence to a barn and from a hut up to a forest, the States south of Washington are pretty well stocked with growing timber. Not so, however, with the States of the East and the West. Complaints are continually made of the wholesale destruction of forests in various parts, and of the consequent climatic changes. And in this place it may be as well to remark that the solicitude upon this important subject is not so much caused by any fear that timber will not be abundant enough for ages to come for all purposes of building and heating operations, but because of the threatened effects upon the climate, and through it upon the growing of crops and the health of residents, caused by the destruction of the forests. Trees, as is well known, are great condensers of moisture and consequent moderators of temperature. They prevent violent alternations of temperature in this way. They lead to a more equable rainfall, and this in its turn prevents the disastrous effects of freshets and violent storms. If the destruction of the western forests continues as it has done in the past the most careful observers are of the opinion that the springs and streams will be so dried up as to lead to drought for half the year. The National Agricultural Convention which met in St. Louis lately adopted the following resolutions upon this subject:

Resolved, That we recommend farmers throughout the United States to plant with trees their hilly or other waste lands, and at least 10 per cent. of their farms with trees, in such a manner as to provide shelter belts or clumps, and rapid growing and useful timber.

2. That we solicit the Legislature of the several States to pass laws providing bounties for planting useful trees, encouraging the planting of the highways, and for the provision of State nurseries of young timber trees; and also the appointment of an Arbor Day for the annual planting of trees, as has already been done in the State of Nebraska.

3. That we ask our Congress of the United States to require, as far as practicable, that hereafter railroad companies and settlers receiving the benefit of the Homestead and other acts donating lands shall plant with timber trees one-tenth of the land so donated.