Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1875 — Timber in Foreign Countries. [ARTICLE]

Timber in Foreign Countries.

During the spring of 1874 the British Government addressed a circular to the representatives of Great Britain in the principal timber-producing countries of Europe, in the United States and Brazil, in Cuba and Honduras, asking for information as to the production and consumption of timber; information desired more particularly by the Commissioners of our Woods and Forests. Fifteen questions were asked. These related to the sorts of trees grown in each country, the uses made of each kind, the ownership of forest lands, the causes of increase or decrease in the acreage of forests, the quantity of wood cut annually, and the amounts exported and consumed at home. Inquiries also were made as to the ascertained influence of forests on local climate, rainfall, floods, etc., and, particularly in Switzerland, whether any steps have been taken to replant the sides of the mountains, so as to stay the action of rain in denuding the soil. Various reports on all the foregoing topics have now been received, and may be procured in the form of a Parliamentary Blue Book,! from which we here call a few brief extracts, commending the work itself to the careful attention of all who take an interest in forest preserva* tion, a subject full of importance, not only because timber is indispensable to human existence, but because we may point to Palestine, to Spain, and probably to many regions in North Africa, to show how the gradual destruction of forests will change the character of a country and its inhabitantfaforever. In Bohemia, during the pastwd-years, a species of worm, which seems act like an epidemic, has been causing great devastation in the forests. The entire side of a range of hills may be seen sometimes laid bare of timber by the inroads of this worm disease. The

diminution of forests in parts of Austria, and more especially in Hungary, has been followed by baneful consequences, such as long droughts and tremendous winds, which fill the air with unceasing clouds of dust and considerably increase pulmonary diseases in towns which have become totally unsheltered. Pesth, Presburg and Viennaare now perfectly intolerable during three parts of the year from this cause. At Rio de Janeiro, thunder-storms, formerly of daily occurrence, are now rare; and the cause is supposed to be the destruction of the forests which surrounded the town, as new roads have been made. Hence, in 1852, yellow fever visited the place and has never left it since, though trees are being busily planted in every street. In Hesse and Baden greater prudence has been displayed. Four-fifths of the former Duchy ana one-third of the latter are wooded, and the law requires that every thirty years land which has once belonged to the eultivatien of trees must return to its original employment. In Sweden the timber resources are immense; Lapland has never been surveyed, bu^iareckoned, with the northern provißPcefi. 'td contain some 30,000,000 acres of foffcst. Unfortunately, the unceasing and enormous demands for wood, especially for charcoal, house-building and lucifermMches, is telling rapidly on the productive power of the forests; this fact is of world-wide importance, for there is hardly a maritime country, except China and Japan, to which Swedish wood in some form does not find its way. At last, in 1874, a law was passed forbidding the felling of any trees ! less than seven inches in diameter at sixteen feet from the ground. This-statute applies only to the Bothnian forests. If extended to all Sweden, as it probably will be, it may greatly affect the mining interests of Great Britain, for it will cut off the supply of small timber known as “ pitprops.” In Switzerland there is now a Sylvan Society, and great pains are being taken to induce people to replant cleared and denuded mountain-slopes, so as to prevent the damage which floods, landslips and avalanches have of late years so frequently inflicted. Switzerland also has an industry—that of wood-carving—-which she had made peculiarly her own, although it was not introduced into the Bernese Oberland before 1815. This wood-carving annually uses up an enormous quantity of wood of all sorts. In Cuba there are abundant forests, which must have increased since 1868, when the insurrection broke out, for there has been very little cutting of late years; but, as we might expect where the Spanish are concerned, no more care is taken, no less recklessness is shown by the farmers who cut wood for their use in Cuba than in any other timber-clad part of the globe.— Land and Water.