ADVANTAGES OF TREE-PLANTING.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5470, 27 August 1879, Page 3

ADVANTAGES OF TREE-PL ANTING.

(From a correspondont of tho Sydney Moiimxc Herald.) It is to be hoped that the severity of the suU'ering inflicted on the world will induce a general recourse to the planting of hiMs with trees, which is the sole means of preventing inundations. Messrs Angenor de Gasparin, Becquerd, and other savants, who have studied this highly important subject, are unanimous in daclaring that the flooding of the rivers is due to the cutting down of forests, whereby the sides of mountains and hills, and the neighborhood of rivers have been denuded of their natural and necessary covering, and urge on the Government the duty of replanting, in order to keep the rivers and streams within their respective channels.

" A well-wooded soil," say these, authorilcs, " is like a sponge, which allows no water to escape until it is completely saturated, consequently, instead of allowing the rain water to flow off as it falls, as does a soil bare of trees, it holds the rain, and gives the moisture free play for penetrating the ground on which it falls. We may compare two pieces of ground, one wooded and tho other bare, to a roof of slate and a roof of thatch.from the first, tho rain, from tho very beginning of a shower, flows off tumultuously, and rushes in torrents from the gutters, which become dry almost as soon as the shower has passed. The thutched roof, on the contrary, receives the rain, lets none of it escape vmtil it has become saturated, and, long after the eky has cleared, continues to send off the surpcriluous moisture gently drop by drop. " Wooded soil acts as does tho thatched roof. It retains the rain unit! thoroughly saturated, and retains its moisture long after the treeless soil has become parched and dry.

" Moreover, tho rain does not in wooded regions fall to tho ground in its totality. A considerable quantity is caught and held by tho leaves and branches and the asperities of the Lark, and in restored to the atmosphere by evaporation. Tho niollinuf of tho snmv also proceeds much nioiv slmvlj- iv wooded vcyons, as tho ground is heated less rapidly under trees than where exposed to the full rays of tho sun.

"Nor is this all," aay tho authorities referred to "for forests destroy miasmata and purify tho plains." " A plantation," says Mr Becqnei'd, " opposes the passage of a current of d;un_p oir ladon with pesti-

lential miasmata, and preserves from its

action the country which lies behind it ; when the region traversed by the pestilential current, being devoid of trees, becomes the seat sf resulting diseases, as is the case in regard to the treeless Roman Campagna. Trees act as a sieve, and purify from putrescenfc particles tho air that passes through them." After the terrible inundations of 18G0 and of 18(!-i, excellent laws were passed by the French Chambers for enforcing the planting of trees with a view to destroying the evil in its source ; but these laws have been allowed to remain inactive, and the danger has consequently remained unabated, notwithstanding the excellent results that have followed the planting of tho hills with trees, wherever that operation has been carried on. For instance, in the department of Cain, tho bed of tho little river Cannau was overflowed one half tho year and dry the other : since the old forest of AEontout, destroyed for the sake of its timber, has been replanted, the Cannau has regained its ancient proportions, never overflow*, and is never dry. The great company of the mines of Grand Combo, which, since 1838, has planted with pines 780 acres of the banks of the rive) 1 harden, has thereby entirely freed that region from the terrible inundations with which it was visited every year. The favorite watering place of Bcrgeess was formerly ravaged every year by tempests of snow. Since tho committee, summoned and preside d over by the late Emperor, ha,i rewooded the side? of the surrounding hills, tho little town has enjoyed a perfect immunity from its former disasters. The village of Anderwaft, in Switzerland, owes its existence to the forests of pine that clothe the surrounding hills and that intercept the avalanches that constantly are falling arounding it every winter and spring.