If there are no trees, no leaves to break the beating rain, no spongy mold to hold the water when it falls, no matted roots to prevent washing, the big raindrops spatter upon the earth and quickly form rushing streams that wash the ground into gulleys. The bare earth absorbs some water, to be sure, but far less than the humus of the forest. If the rains are continued the rivers are soon filled beyond the capacity of their banks and they spread over the neighboring valleys, carrying devastation with them. After the heavy rains cease, the flood waters subside as suddenly as they had arisen and the streams dwindle to insignificance, sometimes completely drying up in a long, hot summer.
Thus it is that forests act as great reservoirs and aid in preventing disastrous floods and in maintaining the flow of streams at a rate that is nearly uniform all the year round.
Now let us see what use is made of the trees. The greatest of all is for firewood; but this is largely the decaying or faulty trees from the farmer's woodlot, the waste product of a lumber region, or from land that is cleared for cultivation. It is said that about 100,000,000 cords are used annually.
The greater part of the salable timber, however, is sawed into lumber, which is used in a variety of ways. The first and greatest use of lumber is for building houses, barns, sheds, outbuildings and fences.
Next comes furniture of all kinds--chairs, tables, beds, and all other house, office, and school furniture; musical instruments; vehicles of all kinds--wagons, carriages, buggies, and parts of automobiles; agricultural implements--plows, harrows, harvesters, thrashing machines, and other farm implements.
Car building is another great use for lumber--freight cars, passenger cars, and trolley cars. Other important uses for timber are as cross-ties, poles for telegraph and telephone lines, and "shoring" or supports in mines. Even more trees are used in the manufacture of paper than for these purposes. Then there are various small articles used in the home, such as spools, butter dishes, fruit crates, baskets, boxes, all kinds of tools, toys, picture frames, matches, pencils, clothes pins, toothpicks, etc. These are little things, but so many of them are used that they consume a great deal of wood. Next we derive tannic acid for tanning leather, turpentine and rosin, maple sugar, and many extracts used in making medicines.