BY THE HON. B. G. NORTHROP, LL.D.
Recent spring floods and the diminished flow of rivers in summer have called public attention to the cause and the remedy as never before. At the opening of the last session of Congress, its attention was called to the subject of Forestry, for the first time in any presidential message. Bills for the protection and extension of forests are now before Congress, and before many state legislatures. The last census presents striking facts which prove this to be a question of both state and national importance. The recent action of the national government shows a new appreciation of forestry. The marvel now is, that the general government did not earlier seek to protect its magnificent forests, once the best and most extensive in the world. Their importance to the nation was little understood. Even after a century of reckless waste, the United States government still owns 85,000,000 acres of timber—a mere fraction of what has been cut, or burned, without a thought of reproduction. The Forestry Division of the United States Department of Agriculture, though organized but six years ago, has already spread much valuable information before the country by its reports and by those of its special agents, commissioned to investigate the forests of the country and the means of their protection and extension. Ex-Governor R. W. Furnas, of Nebraska, for example, investigated the forests of California, Oregon, Washington Territory, and the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. His official reports on the stealing and reckless destruction of those timber lands, and also in regard to the new and extensive timber growing on the treeless plains of Nebraska, were of great public interest. The reports of Dr. F. B. Hough of New York, and F. B. Baker, of Kansas—also agents of the United States Forestry Division—have been extensively circulated and still more widely summarized in the press.
The National Forestry Congress is another index of the growth of popular interest on this subject. A large volume of the proceedings of that association at its meeting in Montreal was officially published by the Dominion of Canada. The best papers given at its three subsequent meetings have been published by the United States Department of Agriculture. The subject has been ably discussed in State Agricultural Reports, and many state and local associations have been formed to further this interest. The passage of the Timber Culture Act has greatly increased the area of planted woodland.
But of all these agencies no one has awakened so general an interest in agriculture as the appointment of Arbor Day, by governors of states, by legislatures, and by state, county and town superintendents of schools. The plan of Arbor Day is simple and inexpensive, and hence the more readily adopted and widely effective. In some states the work has been well done without any legislation. The best results, however, are secured when an act is passed requesting the Governor, each spring, to recommend the observance of Arbor Day, by a special message. The chief magistrate of the state thus most effectually calls the attention of all the people to its importance, and secures general and concerted action. How forests conserve the water supplies and lessen floods is aside from the topic of this paper. While the fact of the increase of spring freshets is everywhere admitted, and scientists agree as to the cause, the popular disbelief of the true theory is the great hindrance to remedial action. The bills for the protection of the Adirondack forests, in the legislature of New York, in 1884, failed by reason of the opposition of the lumbermen, and the common doubt and denial of the benefits of forests in the conservation of the rainfall. I often met the same skepticism in the Ohio valley, even among the sufferers from the flood disasters. They were attributed to the extensive use of tile drains. But both in 1883 and 1884, these floods occurred when the ground was frozen deep, and the drains were therefore inoperative.
That so simple a cause as forest denudation should produce such disastrous results seems at first incredible. It is only when the vast areas contributing to a single river are considered, that the proof of the forest theory seems clear. Take the Ohio River, for illustration. The area drained by it is 214,000 square miles, or twenty-two times as much as that which in Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut is drained by the Connecticut River; an area which includes portions of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky. The length of the Ohio is about 1,000 miles, and that of its ten leading tributaries nearly 4,000, and that of the many minor affluents as much more. The smallest influences working over such immense regions, and ultimately combining in one stream, may enormously swell its volume. As the destruction of forests has been going on for centuries, the remedy must be the work of time, for it must include slow processes and agencies, each separately minute, which become important when multiplied by myriads and extended over broad areas. Arbor Day has proved such an agency.
A brief history of Arbor Day will show its aims. The surprising results already accomplished promise a still broader influence in the near future. The plan originated with ex-Governor J. Sterling Morton, the pioneer tree-planter of Nebraska. He secured the coöperation of the State Board of Agriculture, some thirteen years ago, when the Governor was induced to appoint the second Wednesday in April as a day to be devoted to economic tree-planting. By pen and tongue, as editor and lecturer, with arguments from theory and facts from his own practice, Mr. Morton succeeded in awakening popular enthusiasm in this work, in which he was ably seconded by Ex-Governor Furnas, of Nebraska, who has long served as Forest Commissioner for the United States Department of Agriculture.
In Nebraska a remarkable interest was awakened in the observance of her first Arbor Day, and over 12,000,000 trees were planted on that day. That enthusiasm was not a temporary effervescence. Each successive Governor has annually appointed such a day by an official proclamation, and the interest has been sustained and even increased from year to year. The State Board of Agriculture annually awards liberal prizes to encourage tree-planting. Hence Nebraska is the banner state of America in this work, having, according to official reports, as I am informed by ex-Governor Furnas, 244,353 acres of cultivated woodland, or more than twice that of any other state. The originator of Arbor Day is now recognized as a public benefactor, and hence, during the last campaign, as a candidate for Governor, ran some three thousand ahead of his party ticket. Though at first aiming at economic tree-planting, Nebraska now observes Arbor Day in schools. The example of Nebraska was soon followed by Kansas, which had over 120,000 acres of planted woodland. The Governor of that state issues an annual proclamation for Arbor Day, and it is observed by teachers and scholars and parents, in adorning both school and home grounds.
Four years ago the legislature of Michigan requested the Governor to appoint an Arbor Day. Such an appointment has been repeated each succeeding April. For the last three years a similar day has been appointed by the Governor of Ohio. Many schools, especially those of Cincinnati and Columbus, fitly kept the designated day. No man in this country has had a better opportunity of observing the influence of Arbor Day in schools than Superintendent Peaslee, who, after a trial of three years, says: “The observance of Arbor Day is the most impressive means of interesting the young in this subject. Should this celebration become general, such a public sentiment would lead to the beautifying by trees of every city, town, and village, as well as the public highways, church, and school grounds, and the homes of the people. If but the youth of Ohio could be led to plant their two trees each, how, by the children alone, would the state be enriched and beautified within the next fifty years. By our Arbor Day observance the importance of forestry was impressed upon the minds of thousands of children who then learned to care for and protect trees. Not one of those 20,000 children in Eden Park on Arbor Day injured a single tree.”
West Virginia furnishes another illustration of the influence of observing Arbor Day in schools. In the face of many difficulties, State School Superintendent Butcher appointed an Arbor Day in schools in April, 1883. Without waiting for any legislative or gubernatorial sanction, solely on his own responsibility, he invited the school officers, teachers, parents, and pupils on the designated day to plant trees on the grounds of their schools and homes. He made the April number of his School Journal an “Arbor” number, and circulated it gratuitously over the State. The results exceeded his expectations. It started good influences on minds as well as grounds. This great success prompted a similar observance last April, for which greater preparations were made, with still better results. When called to advocate this measure In various parts of West Virginia last spring, I found the people and the press most responsive in encouraging this practical movement. On the day after the celebration, the papers of Wheeling, for example, commended the work in such terms as the following: “Arbor Day was gloriously celebrated yesterday, and was a splendid success. All—the oldest and the youngest—evinced the liveliest interest. Arbor Day will be one of the institutions of our schools.”