LETTERS FROM OUR YOUNG FRIENDS.
We have received two very interesting letters, one from E.J.K., 461 West 43d Street, and one from C.H.K., 504 West 44th Street. We thank these friends for their kind letters, but are unable to print them at length.
To the Editor.
Dear Sir:—In your article in No. 51, on the forest fires and drought following a very wet season, and remarking that we should have such extremes, is it not due—our irregularity of climate—to our careless devastating of whole portions of the country of trees? Many claim so. We are in sore need of national or state foresters. [Signed] Inquirer.
Dear Inquirer:
While vegetation has something to do with the climate, the sudden changes to which we are subject are due to the configuration of the land. The Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Range rising at either edge of the continent form the immense valley through which the Mississippi takes its course; and these two factors of the high mountains and the broad plains have the greatest influence on the climate.
Our immense length of seaboard and the proximity of the Gulf Stream are also agents for engendering our variable climate.
Trees protect moisture from rapid evaporation, and a wooded country is a blessing to its inhabitants, defending their dwellings from wind in mountainous districts.