"A tree, undoubtedly, is one of the most beautiful objects in nature. Airy and delicate in its youth, luxuriant and majestic in its prime, venerable and picturesque in its old age, it constitutes in its various forms, sizes and developments, the greatest charm and beauty of the earth in all countries. The most varied outline of surface, the finest combination of picturesque materials, the stateliest country house would be comparatively tame and spiritless, without the inimitable accompaniment of foliage. Let those who have passed their whole lives in a richly wooded country, - whose daily visions are deep, leafy glens, forest clad hills, and plains luxuriantly shaded, - transport themselves for a moment to the desert, where but a few stunted bushes raise their heads above the earth, or those wild steppes where the eye wanders in vain for some "leafy garniture," - where the sun strikes down with parching heat, or the wind sweeps over with unbroken fury, and they may, perhaps, estimate by contrast, their beauty and value".

Will our country friends read this carefully, and learn from it to appreciate their woodlands, and hereafter think not of laying the axe to their roots, but rather how they may best preserve and improve them. If they fail to do this, most likely they will live to regret it; and if they do not, their successors surely will.

But there are other arguments in favor of preserving our trees and woods, beside that of butifying the landscape; if there were not, we should have less hope for them than we have.

No man who has ever lived in the country, need be told what an influence is exercised upon the climate by scattered groups of forest trees. any one who has traveled across an open prairie in cold, blustering, winter weather, and then through a well-wooded region, can not have failed to discover the difference. The most disagreeable feature, both to man and beast, in our northern climate, is cold, cutting winds; and where their fury is unbroken, as in treeless or prairie regions, no living thing can resist them. The most hardy of our domestic animals will seek shelter, if within their reach, and, like drowning men, who seize the most frail support, they may often be seen clustering around a solitary tree, a fence corner, or wherever they can discover even the appearance of shelter. Men might learn from this, if not from their own feelings, how grateful is the shade and shelter of trees, and how important it is to preserve and cultivate them.

Is it not well known that the climate of all those portions of the country once well wooded but now in a great measure cleared, is greatly changed for the worse. In Central New York, Peaches were grown successfully for the first twenty years or so after the settlement of the country; now they fail entirely. We have lew snow, more severe cold winda, and winter wheat and other such crops are much more uncertain than formerly. Our summers, also, are marked by extremes of heat and drouth to a far greater extent Very much of this change is unquestionably owing to the absence of the extensive forests that formerly covered a large portion of the country; and we shall feel it yet worse than now, unless the existing remnants of them be carefully managed.

Not long ago, we saw it stated in a French journal, that the population of certain districts had made application to the government, to aid in establishing plantations of trees, as the cutting down of the forests had so affected their climate as to render cultivation difficult and unprofitable. Emerson, in his Trees of Massachusetts, brings forward several facts bearing on this point He says:

"Another use of forests is to serve as conductors of electricity between the clouds and its great reservoir, the earth; thus giving activity to the vital powers of plants, and leading the clouds to discharge their contents upon the earth. A few tall trees on the summit of a hill are sufficient to produce this effect A charged thunder cloud, which passes unbroken over a bare hill, will pour down its moisture, if its electricity is drawn off by these natural conductors. The dry sterility of some parts of Spain, anciently very fertile, is probably owing, in a great degree, to the improvident destruction of the forests, and the absurd laws which discourage their renewal. The forests also coat the earth and keep it warm in winter, shutting in the central heat which would otherwise more rapidly radiate into space and be lost. If you go into the woods at the end of a severe winter, you may any where easily drive down a stake without impediment from the frost; while in the open field by their edge, you find a foot or more of earth frozen solid. Forests act not less favorably as a protection against the excessive heat of the summer's sun, which rapidly evaporates the moisture and parches up the surface.

The first Mahogany cutters in Honduras found the cold under the immense forests so great, that they were obliged, though within 16° of the equator, to kindle fires to keep themselves warm.* The rain, felling on the woods of a hill-side, is retained by the deep and spongy mass formed by the roots and the accumulated deposit of leaves, instead of rushing down, as it otherwise would, in torrents, carrying with it great quantities of loose soil. Protected also from rapid evaporation, it remains laid up as in a reservoir, trickling gradually out and forming perennial streams, watering and fertilizing the low country through the longest summers, and moderating the violence of drouths by mists and dews. All along the coast of New England, numerous little streams, which were formerly fed by the forests, and often rolled a volume of water sufficient to turn a mill in summer, are now dried up at that season, and only furnish a drain for the melting snows of spring, or the occasional great rains of autumn.

"Forests thus equalize the temperature and soften the climate, protecting from the extremes of cold and heat, dryness and humidity. There is little doubt that, if the ancient forests of Spain could be restored to its hills, its ancient fertility would return. Now there is nothing to conduct electricity, nothing to arrest the clouds and make them pour their treasures upon the earth, no reservoirs to lay up the winter's rain in store against the drouths of summer.