As I do not believe that you publish your opinions with a conviction that they cannot be changed, I venture to offer some comment on your position in regard to forestry matters in your last issue.

1. While I agree with you as to the retarding influence which the "silly stuff" that is talked about the connection of rainfall and climate with forest cover, exerts on the promotion of practical forestry, and though the matter of stating or explaining it is often "sorry stuff," the connection nevertheless exists and cannot be talked away so offhand. There is plenty of evidence - and we don't need to go out of our country - to show that the climate, if we understand by it the inter-dependent oscillations of temperature and moisture, is not caused, but locally modified, by the existence of properly distributed forest areas. No doubt the total water-capital of the earth remains the same, forests or no forests, but when and where in its constant circulation it falls to the ground as rain, and how fast it is drained off out of the soil - that is the practically important question; and we know beyond cavil that forest areas do not only depend on, but also influence this distribution of the water capital.

While it would be unscientific to speak of forests as "attracting rain," this term (which, by the way, I do not find in Prof. Shaler's article) expresses in reality and popularly the action upon the moisture suspended in the atmosphere. This action can be explained without distorting physical laws, by the mechanical barrier which a forest offers to isolation, evaporation and winds. What we do know through observation and scientific experiment is the existence and the manner of influence on all factors of climate, exerted by dense forest areas; what we do not know is the degree and extent of this influence.

2. There is also abundant reason to prompt an assertion that in the United States there is no climate, at least not east of the Rocky Mountains and north of the 35th degree, so dry that forest planting - not tree planting - with proper methods and reasonable regard to existing conditions, would be impossible, though it may not at present be practicable or desirable, and that eventually through change of conditions by efforts of man, no place in the United States will be incapable of bearing forest growth.

Be it not overlooked that the rainfall during the five months, April to August (period of vegetation), in Dodge City, Kansas, averages 16.43 inches; in North Platte, Nebraska, 15.96 inches; while Philadelphia shows only 16.40 inches, and the temperature range during the same period at these places shows no appreciable difference. As soon as the solid phalanx of farmers has moved into the arid regions, and by breaking the soil over large areas has made the precipitation now running off to waste available for soil culture, better conditions for forest growth and with it improved conditions for agriculture will be created.

Man is greater than nature, and can do, has done, and will still more do, more things that nature, at least nature alone, cannot do.

Had we not well authenticated historical evidence and the recent experiences of the prairie States and the Russian steppes, reasoning upon the laws of physical science would lead us to the same conclusion.

While, then, this inter-relation of agricultural conditions and forestry will not perhaps induce private forest planting, it is a proper basis of governmental or communal action and legis-lation.

3. In regard to the exertions of France in reforestation, as a matter of fact, the French Government has in co-operation with the local communities reforested, within the last twenty-five years, over 250,000 acres of mountain lands at a cost of $30,000,000, the state paying one-half. In addition, 200.000 acres of sand dunes were brought under forest cover. Since the year 1882 the French Forest Department, which exists since 1827, has had in its yearly budget a considerable sum for the "conservation and restoration of mountain districts by reforesting and resodding," and this year's appropriation for this purpose amounts to 3,290,000 francs ($636,000), and for fixing dunes 360,000 francs ($57,900). The total appropriation for the Forest Department amounts in round numbers to $5,000,000.

There seems to be more " practical solution " in this than we have been able here to come to. Chief of Forestry Division. Washington, D. C.

[Certainly the Gardeners' Monthly changes its opinions, when proper facts are presented. So far as Mr. Fernow's letter is concerned, no facts are offered. He tells us that "there is plenty of evidence," "abundant reasons," "well authenticated historical evidence," and so forth, overlooking the fact that these so-called evidences have mostly been shown to be the merest guess-work, of a most unscientific character. - Ed. G. M].