IN a late number of the Southern Planter is an article, credited to Hovey's Magazine, by Wilson Flagg, on "trees - their general character and advantages." The object of the writer appears to have been, to point out the beauties and the advantages of our forest trees, and to encourage their propagation. Too much cannot well be said on this subject; pleasure and profit would be promoted by it, and most of what is said in this essay is well said, but there is one view taken that appears to me to be incorrect. In objecting to the destruction of our forests, the writer says: "The consequence of depriving a country of its wood, is the drying of the soil in about the same proportion; and were a country to be completely deprived of its timber, in the interior of a large continent, it would be converted into a dry desert." This assertion does not appear to be supported by facts. It may be asked, how came the interior of any continent to be covered with timber at all? The earth was formed before vegetation could have grown upon it, and were it even now deprived of timber, would not the same cause again produce it, that produced it at first? All parts of the earth appear to be composed of very near the same inorganic matters, and under the same circumstances would have produced nearly the same results.

The rocks and sands of the desert of Sahara, had they been subjected to the same influence of rains and moisture that the more central portions of Africa along the line of the equator have been, there is every reason to suppose would have been equally productive. There are general physical causes, acting over every part of the earth's surface, and these causes, when fairly understood, will account for the varied effects we behold.

Why are the eastern sides of the Andes Mountains in South America covered with a most luxuriant vegetation, and deluged at certain seasons with rain, while in the same latitude on the western side of the same moantains it never rains, and vegetation can only be promoted by irrigation.

The researches of Herndon and Gibbons, in their exploration of the Amazon River of South America, fully explain this phenomenon. The tropical current of air, flowing as it does along the equator, from east to west, carries with it from off the Atlantic large quantities of moisture; this is gradually distributed across the continent, until reaching the barrier of the Andes Mountains, where the accumulated vapors are precipitated in heavy rains, while the air, in passing over those snow clad summits, has every particle of moisture congealed, and precipitated in snow.; so that when the air reaches the western side it is entirely deprived of moisture, consequently there can be no rain there. In some parts of the earth, the winds blow in one direction for six months of the year, and in other directions for the other six months. Along the equator the current of air is from east to west, while in the northern temperate zone, the general current is more from west to east. Here, however, there are modifying influences, such as ocean currents, mountain ranges, inland lakes, etc, that prevent any uniform currents of wind; hence we see that variableness in the direction of the current of air so valuable in the temperate regions, making far less deserts in them than where the currents of air are more uniformly in one direction.

It is more than probable that the extremes of heat and cold would be greater in a country deprived of its timber, but it by no means follows that the rains would be less frequent. Dews are heavier in cultivated valleys than in those covered with wood, and there is reason to believe that a larger portion of the rain penetrates the soil in a cultivated field than it would do if in forest. It has often been observed that springs augment in volume as the land around becomes more cleared of its timber.

There is doubtless much yet to learn as to the reasons why some portions of the earth's surface are productive, and others are barren; but it is hardly consistent with what we do know, to assert that to deprive the interior of a continent of its timber would render it "a dry desert." It never could have been anything but a "dry desert" if such would be the effect.