The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, May 1885, No. 8

by Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle; Chautauqua Institution

Prof. B. G. Northrop, of Connecticut, who has done so much to promote the observance of “Arbor Days,” says that in visiting the regions where the floods in the Ohio river in 1883-4 did so much damage—that of 1883, it was estimated, destroyed $60,000,000 worth of property, beside a great many lives, and that of 1884, which was five feet higher, did less harm only because that of 1883 had left less property within reach—he often met, even among the sufferers, a doubt or denial that cutting away the forests on the head-waters of the Ohio had much effect in causing the floods.

Another reason for our apathy is that people get used by degrees to changes in climate, springs and streams; in the adaptedness of a region to raise fruit, vegetables, grain or stock; or in the price and quality of forest products. In all these respects, large portions of the country are already suffering great loss, but most of it has come on gradually. Of late years, however, so much has been said in the papers and magazines that floods, drought and injurious changes of climate are more generally attributed to forest destruction. But people do not seem as yet to be very uneasy about the waste and destruction of the valuable material afforded by the woods. We had so much when we received this continent from God’s hand that it never seemed as if we could suffer from lack of it. In fact, few people realize how great is the money value of what every year we draw from this bank. Most folks would be greatly surprised to learn that what we get from the woods is worth more than any other one crop. No one yield of cotton, corn, wheat or hay is worth so much in dollars and cents.

In 1880, the last census year, these products were worth the enormous sum of $700,000,000, which is one and two-fifths times the value of our breadstuffs; two and one-eighth times that of the meat we raise; two and one-half times that of all the steel and iron we make; almost three times that of the woolen, and three and one-eighth times that of the cotton goods turned out by our mills; more than three and one-half times that of the boots and shoes; four and one-half times that of the sugar and molasses; eight and one-fourth times our total outlay for public education; ten times the output of our gold and silver mines, and three times that of the entire product of coal and ores of all sorts.

Now, this immense sum is what the raw materials afforded by the forests are worth. But these raw materials are themselves the necessary foundation of a vast number of the most important industries, such as the manufacture of furniture, wagons, agricultural implements, railroad cars, pianos, organs and other musical instruments, house-building, etc., etc. It would be a useful exercise to write out a list of the trades and occupations one can think of which must have forest products, or something more costly, as their raw material. We should find that those industries which depend directly on these products include the most important ones, while every branch of manufacture and every kind of work is indirectly dependent on them. Different branches of industry are more and more interwoven with and dependent upon each other, as civilization advances. The greater the number of parts entering into a machine, the greater is the loss from the stoppage of the whole if any one breaks down. A chain is no stronger than its weakest link.

Another reason for our indifference is that most things made from forest products are, as yet, cheap, because improved methods and machinery, together with sharp competition, have lessened the cost of finished articles. Men employed in getting these products out of the woods and carrying them to the consumer, are constantly devising more efficient methods of work. A modern saw mill, planing mill, sash and blind or furniture factory, is as much more efficient than anything known fifty years ago as an express train is better than a stage coach. Then, too, wherever the ground is moderately level, the narrow-gauge railroad often takes the place of the old fashioned sleds or trucks drawn by teams. This makes loggers independent of high water for floating their logs. A train of twenty-five cars, containing 40,000 feet of logs, is on the average loaded in seventy-five and unloaded in nine minutes, and the train will run, one day with another, 160 miles. By this means much timber is now reached that grows so far from streams that it would not have paid to carry it to the mills by the old methods. A dollar or a day’s work will, by means of these contrivances, accomplish so much more now than it used to, that under the pressure of competition, most of the finished articles made of wood in whole or in part, are sold cheaper than formerly. But really good lumber and timber in the tree or log is very much dearer, and this because our enormous consumption is exhausting the stock. But since people in general are impressed by what a finished article costs when they buy it, we are not likely to be goaded into the necessary measures by feeling the lack of forest products until the greater part of our woods have been used up. Nothing but agitation and educational work, such as that done by “Arbor Days,” will arouse us in time to prevent the destruction of our forests.

Before leaving this part of our subject, which has to do with the value of the forests as sources of valuable products, it may be well to say a word about the important matter of forest fires. All experts agree that they consume at least as much as the axe and saw, and that is not less than $300,000,000 worth a year, which is about $5.00 for every man, woman and child in the country. But the indirect damage they do by preventing the proper care of old, and the planting of new woodland, will, quite possibly, prove greater than that which they do by destroying what we already have. The most profitable tree culture is that which produces mature and good timber, because it always will command a high price; while there is now, and probably for a long time there will be, a large supply of, and a low price for, immature and cheap timber. But to raise mature trees, we must wait longer for the profit on the time and money expended. Most of our hasty people want quick returns, and if anything makes the long investment risky, these two objections—delay and risk—will weigh more than any arguments that can be put into the other side of the scale, and it is so hard with our present laws and habits to keep fires out of the woods, that it makes it hazardous to spend time and labor in keeping and caring for trees long enough to get the best timber from them, and therefore few undertake it.

II. But we were to give a glance at the usefulness of forests as preventing certain evils. Taking these up in the order named, we come first to (a) The washing of the soil from hillsides. It was estimated by the exact and cautious George P. Marsh (“Earth as Modified by Human Action”—a book that no one can afford not to read—pp. 282-3), that during the last two thousand years there has been washed away from the portion of Italy drained by the river Po, enough soil to raise the entire surface forty-five feet! Had the woods been left on the steep hillsides as they should have been, most of this havoc would never have occurred. For lack of that soil many districts once fertile are barren, and much of the material of which they have been robbed has been deposited where it is an almost unbearable nuisance. E. g., it has little by little raised the bottom of the Po itself, and the dykes have been built higher and higher to keep the river from flooding the plains through which in the lower part of its course it flows, so that it runs far above the surrounding country, in a sort of aqueduct. The same thing has occurred in the lower part of the Mississippi. From the deck of a steamboat, for a long distance above New Orleans, one looks down on the plantations. This elevation, of course, makes the pressure of the water and the cost of keeping up the dykes, or levees, greater every year, and when a break occurs in time of high water, of course it is more destructive, because it pours down from a higher level.

Now, were all the steep land in the Mississippi valley kept covered with trees, as it should be, this enormous amount of sediment would not come down to raise the bottom and the dykes, and to do much other harm. In time it may break through its banks and make new channels for itself, leaving important towns high and dry, and, of course, destroying much property where its new route is cut. The vast mass of vegetable mould, ashes, etc., which will be washed down into the Hudson—if the forests of the Adirondacks are ever destroyed by fire, as there is danger that they may be—by the great floods which denudation of those mountain sides will often cause, will quite possibly ruin the navigation of that river and the harbor of New York, not to speak of the destruction of farms, factories, and towns lying where those floods can reach them.

Next in our list of evils prevented by forests come Droughts and Floods (c). The annual supply of water from rain and snow, if held back by woods on steep hillsides until it can soak down to the underground sources of springs, or if stored up as in a sponge by the mass of fine roots, dead leaves, decayed wood, moss, etc., which often accumulate on the surface under old forests to the depth of two or three feet—may be made to last through a whole summer. There falls from the clouds—one year with another—only a certain amount of water in any particular region. If there is nothing on the hillsides to hinder its rush down into the streams, it is lavished like the money of a spendthrift, where it does little or no good, and very likely much harm. The difference between the two is that between feverish, riotous waste and sober plenty. “Waste not, want not,” is as good a maxim for the management of water as for that of cash.