aid that a rapid course of spoilation was going on in the outskirts of
the forest, and the effect of it would soon be felt in the flow of the
Hudson. The impression that the Adirondacks were pine-producing was a
false one. Pine trees were seldom seen and the mountains were covered
with spruce and hemlock. But the spruces, owing to a disease which
attacked them a few years ago, are rapidly dying off. On the Ausable
river and along the shores of Lake Champlain the destruction of the
forest is especially great. Persons living about the forest start fires
in the woodland which spread rapidly and are more destructive to the
trees than the lumbermen. Professor Leeds thought that the railways
which are making their way through the forests would be an important
element in their destruction, for the sparks of the locomotives would
originate forest fires. He said that the purchase of the forests by the
State might not require so great an expenditure of money as was
anticipated.

* * * * *

In closing an article on "Forestry and Farming," the Germantown
Telegraph maintains that the idea that farmers and land-owners generally
entertain that they may not live to enjoy the advantages of the
tree-planting, should be utterly banished from their minds. It will
require only about twenty years to realize the most liberal hopes of
success; at least it will add to the value of the farm by the fact that
the amount of timber is to be increased instead of diminished. We all
know how anxious every purchaser of a tract of land is to know whether
there is any and how much timber upon a farm offered for sale. In fact,
there is no greater mistake made than to cut down the wood upon a farm
when purchased, with a view to meet the second payment; and this mistake
is invariably brought home to everyone in a few years. It is like taking
the life-blood out of the land.

SCIENTIFIC.

Official Weather Wisdom.

Almost from its invention the barometer has been vaunted an indicator of
impending weather, and now we are in possession of numberless rules for
interpreting its indications, mostly of a vague and indefinite purport,
few, if any, pretending to accuracy and certainty. As mankind are always
desirous of attaining weather wisdom, these rules have tended to give
the barometer its widely recognized reputation, rather than any really
infallible principles, clearly formulated. With no other philosophical
instrumen