and the methods employed should be reported, and those particularly successful should be published. By having one premium for greatest variety, we might occasionally strike a success, beyond what could be realized from the cultivation of the native trees of the locality, or what is quite as important, a failure, that would hinder others from going blindly into an adventure that would end in nothing but disappointment. In all reports, these failures should be mentioned, quite as distinctly as the bright side. Let us know the percentages of each, and enough concerning them to judge how far the one can be imitated or surpassed, and the other avoided.

It would be also well to arrange the premiums, so as to particularly interest the young in the planting and care of trees. An early impression may be long remembered, and a love for this employment thus impressed may last a life time, and be imparted to generations beyond. These premiums might also have reference to displays of forest culture at public fairs, and to best essays on management. If ladies can be interested in these competitive enterprises, as applied to home adornment, and ornamental planting, a decided benefit will be secured. An appreciation of the beautiful on the lawn, is transferred easily to the grove and the woodland, and we are led to admire beauty in a tree, or in the grouping of trees, wherever found.

2. The State may encourage forest planting by exempting from taxation, for a specified time, such cleared lands as may be planted in forest, or if, as in some States, the Constitution forbids the exemption of property from taxation, it may declare that no extra valuation shall be added by reason of forest planting. It may also encourage planting along highways by allowing deductions to be made from highway taxes or by direct allowance of money, according to number of trees or length of rows thus planted, assurances of success being first had.

3. It is well worth considering whether the State may not properly impose a tree tax, analagous to its road taxes, to be satisfied by the planting of trees, or by the payment of money that shall secure their planting. This, if done, might be justified under that right of eminent domain by which the government may require a thing to be done where the public welfare demands it. Illustrations of this appear in the recent legislation in Europe, by which the owners of "dangerous lands" may be compelled to plant or may be forbidden from clearing them. In this class would be found such timber lands as shelter a town from prevailing storms, or that would be liable to erosion by torrents, if cleared, or that intercept the malaria from a marsh. It also includes lands that should be planted for the public good, such as drifting sands, wind-breaks to prevent drifting snows, and tracts that should be kept in woodland for the maintenance of springs, etc. Of course, in all these cases the owners' rights must be regarded, and those who are benefited should pay the cost, whether it be village, a city, a county, or the State,

4. There can be little doubt but that a heavy drain upon our forests is due

to needless fences. If cattle were kept in and not out, if the highways can be defined by lines of trees instead of fences a great saving (equivalent to so much gain) will be secured. This can be accomplished by a modification of the fence law, where necessary, requiring the owners of domestic animals to keep them upon their own premises, division fences between pastures being kept up jointly by the owners, but otherwise in severalty by those who pasture to a neighbor's line. We are aware that this doctrine of few fences will be regarded with little favor by the thrifty farmers, who have prided themselves upon the excellence of their boundary and partition walls of wood; but consider their cost.

5. Forest fires, in some years, destroy more timber than all the wants of our population and all the demands of commerce require. The most stringent laws should be passed and enforced against the careless use of fire in or near a woodland. It should have reference to the burning of fallow land or of brush, charcoal burning, the careless use of matches, or negligence in building fires for any occasion where the least danger is to be apprehended. Additional precautions might be required of railroad companies with regard to fires.

6. It is admitted by all who have given due attention to the subject, that the birds are our best friends, in destroying the insects that injure our field crops, our orchards and gardens, and our forest trees. It is known to all that birds multiply in proportion to their protection, and to their opportunity for nesting in woodland hedges and groves. This is a subject. of vital interest to the farmer, and his interests demand stringent game laws, thoroughly enforced, and a spirit of kindness towards the birds, that shall encourage their maintenance up to the measure of their need. It is true, that birds are not insectivorous. It is also true, that all insects are not injurious, some being in effect our best friend; but the balance of nature, when undisturbed, hangs level, as regards these great classes of animal life, and a game law protecting all birds at all seasons would be much more effectual, than one that leaves the opportunity for destruction open a part of the year. So important has the injury from insects due to the destruction of birds become in Europe, that active measures have been taken to restore the injury by preventing the cause. The utility of birds, and a sentiment of kindness towards them, is taught in schools, and little societies for protection are formed among the scholars, under the advice and encouragement of the teachers. With a plenty of groves and belts of woodland, there would be an abundance of these useful allies of the farm.

7. There are cases in every State where drifting sands in summer and drifting snows in winter produce great injury, the former often burying fertile lands, and the latter obstructing travel in winter. The State owes it as a duty to its citizens to provide by law that the local authorities, at local expense, shall remedy these evils, which can both be readily cured by planting trees. In cases where a particular part of the highway is habitually obstructed by snow, the officers in charge should be empowered to take,

in the same manner as land is taken for new roads, a belt of land, sufficiently wide for planting a screen of evergreens on the windward side, and should be empowered to plant and maintain the same, in the same manner as roads and bridges. In cases where existing woodlands protect sands from drifting, the owner should be forbidden from cutting them down. But as such prohibitions might lessen the value of his property for the public good, means should be provided for ascertaining and protecting these rights. In the recent German law forbidding trees from being cut where their removal would allow torrents to erode, the parties endangered in the valleys below, are required to pay in proportion to their interest, for the extra expense or loss that the owner of the wood suffers from its remaining.

8. The State can aid colleges and other incorporated institutions of learning in establishing a department of instruction in forestry, or at least assist them in providing some instruction by way of lectures, cabinets, and other appliances of education in the interest of tree culture and forest economies. It can require such instruction and other means of learning at all institutions receiving support from the State, especially in normal schools, from whence useful ideas might be carried to the primary schools, by those prepared for teaching at public cost. Every college and seminary should have a living collection of the native and the principal foreign trees adapted to the locality, properly labeled with common and botanical names, and students should be taught at least their names, uses, and distinguishing traits. One large premium for the best arboretum, might lead to the planting of a dozen. Collections of wood specimens, properly prepared, would be very instructive in seminaries of learning of every degree, and if classes could be encouraged in forming these, the information gained and interest awakened would prove very useful for life. As we sometimes value objects that have cost an effort, more than a free gift, all subsidies in aid of these objects should be conditioned to the raising of an equal or larger amount by those receiving, except where the institution is wholly owned and maintained by the State.

9. The State can direct experimental stations to be established, for showing best methods, or testing new species, or conducting special researches. These can best best be done at State farms, and at colleges, in connection with the course of instruction applied sciences, natural science, etc., and in the latter, partial aid may perhaps secure full results, the balance being paid by the institute. Meterological observations with the view_ of studying the effect of woodlands upon climate, methods of planting and management, the effect of fertilizers, differences of result on peculiar soils, etc., might come within the range of these observations. Of course where such a station was an object of interest to visitors, care should be taken that the casual observer shall not mistake an experiment, intended as a trial and leading to a result unknown, for the best result of the best method. If there is risk of this, the trial experiment should be closed against the general public, and only such should be open to every one, as all might imitate in their own cultivation with profit.

10. The State can cause its forest resources to be explored, and its wants and capabilities to be made known, and it can cause useful information to be published upon these subjects.

11. Additional means should be provided for ascertaining the statistics of production and transportation of forest products, so that the real condition of all interests depending upon these industries can be better known. 12. The State could enlarge the powers of city, borough, town, and village governments, in providing parks and rural ornament in their streets, or suburbs, whereby a refining influence would be created and diffused, tending to the improvement and enjoyment of its citizens. In questions involving expenses beyond a certain amount, an expression should be allowed by a popular vote of those most interested in a given street or district on which the cost would fall.

THE FORESTS OF OUR STATE.

THEIR VALUE AND THEIR INFLUENCE UPON STREAMS, TEMPERATURE, CLIMATE, AND RAIN-FALL.

BY THE SECRETARY.

"I specially invite your attention to an evil of considerable magnitude, which every year grows more aggravated, and in certain regions, at times, is the cause of serious apprehension and loss. I refer to the wholesale destruction of our forests, the stripping our mountains and hills of their trees, resulting in an enormous diminution of water for mechanical and fertilizing purposes, and in great changes in the normal conditions of temperature and moisture, affecting the general health, and at seasons bringing about devastating floods. These consequences, as the effects of this indiscriminate waste, are demonstrable, and a wise legislation will forecast the future, and establish such regulations as will rescue our descendants from the ills a perseverance in this practice will certainly entail upon them." [Message of Governor Hartranft, 1873.]

"The attention of the Legislature is again directed to the necessity of adopting some measures to arrest the wanton and indiscriminate destruction of the forests of the State. The extent and variety of the evils involved in this waste, it is to be feared, will fail to be appreciated until we are made to sensibly feel their disastrous effects. Lumbermen of experience

declare that in thirty years, with the present alarming destruction of trees, Pennsylvania will not have any saleable timber within her borders. The regions where this timber is found are the natural reservoirs from which our streams and rivers are fed, and observation shows that the rain-fall and the supply of water therein have been materially diminished since they were stripped of the forests. It is alleged, likewise, that decided atmospheric changes are perceptible, and that the winters have grown more rigorous and the heat of summer more intense in these same regions, and that the dwarfed fruits and stunted crops are plainly traceable to the absence of the usual moisture occasioned by denuding them of their trees. To test the correctness of these observations, and determine whether it is advisable or practicable to regulate the destruction of timber, I respectfully propose that the commissioners of the geological survey be empowered to employ a person to make the necessary scientific and practical inquiries." [Message of Governor Hartranft, 1874.]

If any apology or excuse was needed for the introduction of such an important question to the notice of the Legislature, the board, or to the farmers and citizens of our State, certainly these extracts from the annual messages of our present Governor and president of the board, would be all sufficient; but, unfortunately, the question is one which will sooner or later force itself upon our notice without any ceremony, or even apology, and it is but an exhibit of ordinary prudence to endeavor to meet the difficulty as soon as possible, knowing, as we do, that the longer it is deferred the greater will be the force when it must be met. The question is one which not only admits, but even seems to demand, a division into several branches or heads, each of which must be viewed and discussed from a different stand-point, and by access to different classes of data, but a general view will convince any one that all of these must at all events unite in a harmonious whole, and that any one of these will furnish forcible arguments in support of the position taken by his Excellency, as above quoted. Viewed from the stand-point of economic or commercial value alone, the subject is one of vast importance to the future welfare of the State; but when we add to this the possible effect upon temperature, climate, streams, and rain-fall, its importance is indefinitely extended. These possible effects may very properly be divided into two classes-meteorological, as they affect the climate, and physical, as they affect the surface of the State. Of these two, the latter, involving, as it does, questions of fact, which we may suppose will be easily determined, is probably the most easy of solution, while in the former we find more of theory and argument than of fact. This may be partially due not only to a want of proper record or data, but also to the fact that the comparison depends much upon mere opinion.

From a mere superficial view, many will entirely fail to properly appreciate the economic value of the timber and timber producing interests of our nation, or even of our State. When to these direct interests we