Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1879 — Trees and Health. [ARTICLE]

Trees and Health.

Everybody knows that trees take the carbonic acid thrown out in the breath of men and animals, separate it into its component parts—carbon and oxygen —give back the latter to be used over again, and work up the former into wood and fruits. It is also coming to be generally understood that forest trees do important service in promoting rainfalls, and in helping to retain the surface-water for springs, streams and general use. It is also known that certain species, planted in malarial localities, help to render the latter healthy by somehow using up the deadly miasma. It would now appear that trees growing near drains carry off the sewage water. A gentleman, whose cess-drain was constructed just like his neighbors’ and in the same kied of soil, had found it unnecessary to clean it out, while the others had to be cleaned out frequently. An examination showed that three large trees, whose roots had penetrated into the vicinity of his second, or waste, cess-pool, were clearly the channels through which the waste all escaped. Whether it was changed into plantfood, as is likely, or was exhaled through the leaves, in either case it was disposed of with equal safety.