INSECURITY OF OUR FORESTS.
The American continent is so vast, and so large a part of it is still covered with wood, that men are not ready to believe there is any danger of exterminating its forests. Supposing them to be inexhaustible, they are entirely indiscriminate in their method of clearing them, and treat them as if they were of no importance further than they subserve the present wants of the community. They are either reckless or ignorant of their indispensable uses in the economy of nature, and seem purposely to shut their eyes to facts and principles in relation to them which are well known to men of science. Our people look upon the forests as valuable only so far as they supply material for the arts and for fuel, for the construction of houses, ships, and public works; and as there is not much danger of immediately exhausting the supplies for these purposes, the public mind remains quiet, while certain operations are going forward which, if not soon checked by some very powerful restraint, will, before the lapse of another century, reduce half this wide continent to a desert. The science of vegetable meteorology deserves more consideration than it has yet received from our professors of learning. This, if fully explained, would teach men some of the fearful consequences that would ensue if a country were entirely disrobed of its forests, and their relations to birds, insects, and quadrupeds would explain the impossibility of ever restoring them. Man has the power, which, if exercised without regard to the laws of nature, may, at no very distant period, render this earth uninhabitable by man. In his eagerness to improve his present condition, and his senseless grasp for immediate advantages, he may disqualify the earth for a human abode.
This matter has been strangely overlooked by legislators in the several States, though frequently discussed by naturalists and philosophical writers. In spite of the warnings the people have received from learned men, very little thought has been given to the subject. How few persons suspect that in less than a century the greatest affliction this country is doomed to suffer may be caused by the destruction of its forests! Springs once full all the year will be dry every summer and autumn; small rivers will desert their channels; once profitable mill-privileges will cease to be of any value; every shower will produce inundations; every summer will be subject to pernicious droughts. The preservation of the forests in a certain ratio over our whole territory ought to be the subject of immediate legislation in all the States. It is not a part of the plan of this work, however, to treat of woods as a subject of political economy, but rather to prompt our wise men to protect them by statute, by showing our dependence on them for our existence.
It has been said that the intelligence of an educated and civilized community like our own ought to save the country from this evil. But it is our civilization that has created the very danger that threatens us. A country, while it remains in the possession of barbarians, is never disforested. It is a false assurance that the general intelligence of the community will secure them from this danger, unless they have studied the causes of it. A literary and even a scientific education, as popularly conducted, does not imply any great amount of this kind of knowledge. The intelligence of our people would undoubtedly prepare them to understand the subject when explained to them by some one who has made it his special study; but reading does not acquaint a person with facts contained only in books which he never reads, though his habit of reading only for amusement may keep him ignorant of many things which he would otherwise learn from observation. The subject of this essay is not sufficiently exciting to obtain a hearing from the public in a lecture-room. Every avenue of popular information is so greatly obstructed by objects designed only to afford amusement, that science and philosophy, save those branches which some eloquent work has rendered fashionable, have but very little chance to be heard. Even among our literary classes, if you speak of trees and woods, there is only an occasional individual of eccentric habits who seems capable of taking any other than an æsthetic view of their relations to human wants.
But it will be said, if a liberal education does not supply men with the right kind of knowledge on this point, certainly our practical men will understand it. They, I admit, would see at once how much money could be made by cutting down all the trees in any given tract of forest; but they are not the men to be consulted respecting the advantage of any scheme that does not promise to be a profitable investment of capital. Our practical men are the very individuals from whose venal hands it is necessary to protect our forests by legislation. In France, where great evils have followed the destruction of woods, laws have been enacted for restoring and preserving them in certain situations. These laws, however, originated, not with practical men, but with Napoleon III., who obtained his views from men of science. Our people have less knowledge of this subject than the Europeans, who have been compelled to study it by the presence of evils which the Americans are just beginning to experience.
The sentiment of the American public seems to have been excited in favor of trees individually considered, rather than forests. People look upon trees as their friends; and more indignation is generally caused by the felling of a single large tree standing in an open field or by the roadside, than by the destruction of whole acres of woods. Our love of trees is a sort of passion; but we need yet to learn that a wood on a steep hillside is of more importance than as many standards as there are trees in the same wood, scattered upon a plain. This æsthetic sentiment seems to be the only conservative principle that has yet produced any considerable effect in preserving trees and groves. It often extends to groups of trees, and sometimes to large assemblages, especially on estates which have remained through several generations in the possession of one family. But generally the avarice or the necessity of our farmers has been more powerful to devastate, than the taste and sentiment of others to preserve our woods.
I have long been persuaded that, unless the governments of the several States should make this a subject of special legislation, the security of our forests must depend on men of large property in land. Men of wealth, if not learned, are generally in communication with men of learning, from whom they may obtain a knowledge of vegetable meteorology, and not being obliged, by pecuniary necessity, to cut down their woods, will, from a sense of their importance in the economy of nature, become their preservers. The wealth and taste of certain families in every town and village will save a great many trees, groves, and fragments of forest. But if our law-makers neglect to legislate for this end, we must look to the possessors of immense estates, the lords of whole townships, for the preservation of any large tracts of forest.