gestion, Pennsylvania has some thousands of acres of land which are poorly, if at all, adapted to cultivation, which are in various degrees of nudity and unproductivenes. Though once well forested, they have been stripped of all that was worth the handling and are now practically abandoned to nature. She does her best to cover their nakedness, but it is only here and there that it is done in just the way which most nearly meets man's necessity. Moreover, these lands, made up largely of our low mountain ridges, are so intercalated or even interlaced with the fertile arable lands through a very large part of the State, that we have the best possible relation between forested and cultivated areas. Happily. too, these mountain ridges offer little inducement to cultivation, and it is highly probable that in this wooded state they are efficient agents in equalizing our climate, as they certainly have been and are sources of wealth through their timber supply. It remains for us to see that the proper relation between our wooded and arable districts is maintained, and I wish to lay special emphasis upon the practicability of aiding nature to secure a thickly-set, vigorous stand of trees, whereby a greater number may be produced upon a given area, and such as will make the most valuable building material for use in the future. Herein is field for the labor of men with means and land, who are looking about for more worlds or woods to conquer. Amid numerous investments, why not make one, larger or smaller, in forest-planting?

A few words as to the objections which are generally given to such a novel suggestion. It will probably be said that much of this mountain land is so stony as to be totally unfit for any kind of vegetation, and that it would be impossible for trees to grow there. This is doubtless true of some places, but the areas of this kind are very much fewer and smaller than is generally supposed. I maintain that wherever it is possible to get trees started so as to make a slight shade and protection that there the accumulations of decaying leaves and branches and the disintegrations of the rocks will soon make a soil surface, thin perhaps, but thick enough to continue the life of the trees, and thickening as they grow. There is conclusive evidence that much of what is now the barren, shifting rock of our sandstone ridges was once covered with a very fair growth of trees, but upon their removal, or even without that, fire has swept in, and so thoroughly removed every vestige of organic matter that it will take a generation before any treegrowth can be established again. Further, it will be said that this danger from fire is so great and so constant that it renders any artificial planting on a large scale, and on our mountain lands utterly impracticable. This is indeed the most formidable objection that can be raised. Anyone acquainted with the facts must be forced to admit its value. It is a cause of great regret when we consider that these destructive fires are so often originated by selfish and malicious persons. The only suggestion I can offer on this point is to express the hope that the popular sentiment which we all recognize as so powerful for good or for evil may be influenced by the press, by local clubs and granges, by such meetings as this, so that we shall soon be able to perceive a changed feeling, and that people will come to realize that forests have not only a value to the immediate owner, but also a common value and a common interest to us all.

Says Prof. Sargent in the census report on the forests of the United States: "Fires do not consume forests upon which a whole community is dependent for support, and methods for the continuance of such

forests are soon found and put in execution." "The experience of Maine shows that where climatic conditions are favorable, the remnants of the original forest can be preserved, and new forests created as soon as the entire community finds forest preservations really essential to its material prosperity." If we accept the figures regarding forest fires in Pennsylvania by this same census report of 1880, we must admit that the room for improvement in this public sentiment is a very large room, for we are told that the property destroyed was valued at over three million dollars; that there were one hundred and twenty-nine destructive fires due to clearing land, one hundred and thirty-three to sparks, from locomotives, seventeen to hunters, and (worst of all) one hundred and two to malice. May the efforts to bring about a better public sentiment in this respect be redoubled, until we shall no longer be compelled to record such humiliating facts as these. Still another objection arises in that the length of time required to get any return from money invested in planting and caring for trees is so great that few would be willing to run the risks. The difficulty, however, is rather in the feeling that it is not perfectly plain that at the expiration of a given time there will be value in the investment, and not that long time is required. The time is no longer than in some other business project, but this is to most men an entirely new idea. Many do not believe that forest trees can be grown as fruit trees in a nursery, or as ordinary field crops are grown.

There is a fallacions idea that forest trees so impoverish the soil on which they grow that a second crop of the same or similar kinds cannot be grown until some years have elapsed and the soil has been able to recuperate. Experimental plantations which would be of great service in showing what is possible in this direction are few and far between. For these and similar reasons men are slow to take stock in such an enterprise, although I apprehend there are some who would be willing to trade off some unproductive stock in more specious enterprises and run the risks in a forestry company. But what is the time involved? It will vary widely according to the kinds of trees, the soil and situation. I have presented some figures based upon the white pine. They indicate that it will be at least fifty to sixty years before timber of much value can be obtained. On better soil I believe this time would be considerably reduced. As a type of a more rapidly growing tree which is probably better adapted to our mountain land, particularly to the poorer parts of it, we may take the chestnut. Over a considerable part of the barrens before named the chestnut grows naturally, and occasionally one may find small tracts of young chestnut timber which is rapidly making a good record for itself. In all cases here at least this is sprout growth, and hence the trees are seldom as straight and symmetrical or as high as they would be if they had originated like the pines. The best of these trees are one foot in diameter near the base and are about twenty-five years old. The value of the chestnut for posts and the ease with which new trees spring up from the stump make it feasible to cut comparatively small trees to advantage. Upon some soils it is probable that black walnut will prove the best tree, and on the higher Allegheny plateau west of us the sugar maple and the beech seem well adapted; but of these particular trees I have only a general idea and cannot speak in detail. It has always seemed to me that the long time necessary to fully realize on an investment in forest planting would not be an insuperable objection whenever it is shown that the trees can be pro

duced and that the need for and value of trees will be at least as great fifty years hence as now.

But since individuals seem so loth to undertake any such schemes on account of the expense and risks involved, why cannot corporations take hold of it? To this plan, which we owe to the Botanist of this Board, Professor Meehan, I wish to add the suggestion that gentlemen interested in hunting and fishing can, if they will, inaugurate forest culture to the great good also of their own organization for the preservation of game and fish. Let any one of the companies which buy or lease tracts of lands for sporting purposes not only preserve and protect the existing timber-which I believe they do because of its relation to the game-but also reseed and replant so large areas as their means will permit, and it will not be long before we shall have some fairly definite knowledge of the rate of growth of different kinds of trees, their value, &c., and some excellent examples which individual land owners may be willing to follow. A gamekeeper is of necessity something of a forester, and if game preserves should become a feature in our State it would seem feasible to have them serve as instructors in forest economy and their keepers to have under their special care the trees as well as the game and to arrest and have punished the poacher upon either. It may be that in this way we may have introduced into this country something of the spirit and method of forest economy as it has been so long practiced in Europe but which in its entirety seems not adapted to our American conditions.

Still another suggestion. By way of familiarizing people with forest tree planting, as well as for reasons before mentioned, special effort should be made in road side planting, not only on Arbor Day but on other days. When we see how much is added to our country roads where this practice is already common we wonder why it is not more popular elsewhere. In part the reason is found in that our system of allowing our highways to be the common foraging ground for domestic animals simply invites destruction of anything planted thereon unless extra and disproportionate expense is laid out in protecting the trees by boxes. In this respect, as in that of the forest fires, may we not hope that we shall soon see such a change in public sentiment that even the poor man's cow may lose the opportunity of worrying the life out of the prudent man's trees.

I am well aware that I have presented nothing really new on this subject to those who are familiar with it, but I trust that I may have presented some things in somewhat of a new light and attracted the attention of some who are or may be so situated that they can undertake some work of this kind. Pennsylvania, whose past prosperity has been so closely related to her forest products, ought not to fall behind in all reasonable efforts to sustain and revive an industry which seems to have nearly run its course and for which she has exceptionably good natural facilities.

THE TIMBER QUESTION AND WHAT TREES TO PLANT.

By E. SATTERTHWAIT, Jenkintown, Pa., Pomologist of the Board.

The subject, or rather science of forestry, as it may properly be called, has, of late, justly claimed a large share of attention from agricultural and climatic scientists. But notwithstanding so much has been said. and written on the subject, its importance is not likely to be over estimated. And though, probably, there is not much that the deliberations of this body can do in the direction of accomplishing the great results that are confidently claimed as being within its scope, it may not be out of place to give it a small share of our attention. The value of timber, considered merely as a commercial product, is beyond all calculation, and is probably greater than that of any other one thing that could be named. But when we come to consider that besides this, upon the question of timber or no timber, depends in a great measure the value of all the land in the country for the pur. poses of agriculture. and that without trees a very large portion of our country must become a desert waste; that questions of climate, of extremes of heat and cold, of destructive atmospheric disturbances, of uniformity and regular distribution of rainfall. of the supply of well water, and of the flow of springs, and even of large streams and navigable waters are dependant largely on this question, we see, at once, that it is one of too great importance for any mere State institution or State legislature to cope with. And it is a source of gratification to know that our national legislature has done something if only a small beginning, in the direction of advancing this science. And perhaps the most we can expect to accomplish will be, by agitating the subject, to compel our representatives in the national legislature to recognize its importance. I do not profess to speak as an expert, having given only a little casual attention to the subject, and it is in reality a great science, one in which a life time could profitably be spent, but judging from my own observations and the opinions of those who have thus devoted their lives to its study, I am firmly assured that it is a subject more deserving the attention of our government than some others that now claim a large share of the national resources. With an annual appropriation commensurate with its importance, hundreds of millions of acres of territory now condemned as an irreclaimable desert and almost unfit for any agricultural purpose, could, with a comparative small expenditure in the planting and caring for forests, be reclaimed and become a valuable part of the public domain instead of a barren waste. This subject is surely one of sufficient importance of itself to justify the agriculturists of the country in demanding that their interests shall be recognized by establishing an agricultural department with a cabinet officer at its head. It would be out of place here to pursue further this branch of the subject. But it may perhaps be well in treating of the general subject of tree planting to give a few of the general conclusions which seem to be indisputably established. One of the most important of these is the effect that forests undoubtedly exercise on the amount and distribution of rainfall. This is easily understood when we reflect that rain is the condensed vapor that has escaped by evaporation from the earth's surface and that the amount of rainfall is, of course, limited by the amount of evaporation. The effect of an area of forest on evaporation is precisely

similar to that of a body of water. The tendency of both is to modify and equalize the amount of evaporation. The absorption of moisture by the atmosphere from a surface of water or of forest is uniform; that is, when the conditions are the same. Whereas the amount of evaporation from ground not so covered, is extremely variable. When the earth is wet, the heat of the sun during the warm seasons of the year, when vegetation is growing, causes a rapid evaporation from its surface, probably much greater than from either a surface of forest or of water. But when, on the other hand, the earth happens to become dry, evaporation from its surface falls off in proportion and in times of extreme drought, the escape of moisture from the earth, even under the hottest sun will not be equal to the amount nightly extracted from the atmosphere in the shape of dew, so that the expression, at such times, that it has got too dry to rain," is quite correct. We can thus readily understand how, in a country where there are no forests, and far from any large bodies of water, rain becomes impossible and no form of vegetable life can exist. This explains how deserts are formed. Now let us see how this will apply to a country, as our is, diversified with cultivated farms, forests and streams of water. During winter and the cool months of spring and autumn, when not much rain is needed for the purposes of vegetation, we have generally an abundance. But when the summer heat begins it may, and generally does happen, that in some sections, the surface of the ground having dried quickly, drought commences, and in a little while the whole surface of exposed soil affords so little moisture to the atmosphere that rain would not be possible, but that there are some areas, not too far removed, covered either with trees or with water, where evaporation still goes on. And so it very commonly happens that our summer local rains, upon which we have to depend so much for success in all our farming operations, most provokingly seem to shun the driest sections. The reason is, there is not enough moisture in the atmosphere in those sections to produce rain clouds. The whole subject is very simple when we come to look at it. The atmosphere absorbs moisture like a sponge and like other substances it expands with heat and contracts with cold, and when any portion of the atmosphere is suddenly cooled, as by coming in contact with a colder current of air, the contraction thus caused squeezes out the water, and this is rain. But if the atmosphere has been in contact. with only dry earth it will not contain sufficient moisture to produce rain-the sponge will be too dry. Where a large portion of the earth's surface is covered with forests or bodies of water, the evaporation from these being constant, there is mostly a sufficient amount of moisture in the atmosphere to produce rain when other favorable conditions occur.

That the quantity of vapor given out by trees when in leaf is very great, is made evident by cutting off and exposing to the sun a branch with foliage in a hot summer's day, and see how quickly all the moisture in the leaves will be absorbed by the air. And this absorption is going on continuously during the day, from the whole surface of every leaf in the forest. During the hot summer day, every growing tree is drawing up a constant stream of water from the earth, and giving it out to the surrounding atmosphere where it is held as in a reservoir for future rainfall.

The comparative amount of water thus given out to the air between a surface of forest, a surface of water, and a surface of bare earth, or