Part 5 (1/2)

And whatwater exerts a pressure of 138 tons to the square foot; so there's no holding out against hie blocks tuainst one another, break off sments the wind seizes Others are washed down by the rains The largest, carried away by , and so break off rind the the banks when the torrents shrink, or in their beds when these sudden streaing rock into soil, running water and the winds each have an advantage over the other Water weighs a great deal rinds faster with its tools of pebbles and sand The winds, on the other hand, get over a great deal more territory, and they, like the lichens, understand cheht with theen--help decay the rocks

As I said, the winds do ions, but when you relobe is just that--dry as a bone reat field It has been so froht probable that there was always about the saht and day the winds have been busy through all these ages Dust is carried up by ascending air currents

Then the saravity--pulls down on a grain of dust But its fall is checked by the friction of the air You see there's a lot of oes about it as if it were the rain as if the future of the universe depended on it In the case of sand or coarse dust, unless the winds are very strong, gravity soon gets the best of it, and down the dust grain coain; then up with another current, then down again--carried far by stiff breezes, only a short distance by puffs--a kind of hop, skip, and juood lift into the upper currents at the start may stay in the air for weeks

[Illustration: _Courtesy of The Dunham Company_

TO KEEP MOISTURE AND SOIL AT HOME

In the broad fields of the West, where ”dry-fare machines They are called ”Cultipackers” They are cultivators with big, broad-brimmed wheels that pack the surface of the soil after the blades of the cultivator have stirred it This not only prevents theas fast as it would otherwise do, but keeps the winds fro away the soil itself]

In very ind-storured out that there may be as ood farms in the air at once, over every square mile of the earth below!

III THE STORM PLOUGHS OF THE WIND

TWO KINDS OF WOODEN PLOUGHS

They use wooden ploughs, these winds, just as primitive man did, and as primitive peoples do now; but not quite in the sa they do is h is a crooked stick made from the branches of a tree while the winds use the whole tree--roots and all, and both onthey do is immense

Almost all forests are liable to occasional hurricanes which lay the trees over thousands of acres in one i to their strong trunks, do not break off but uproot, lifting great sheets of earth Soon, by the action of its oeight and the elements, this soil falls back The depth to which this natural ploughing is done depends, of course, on the character of the tree, but as it is the older and larger trees that are most likely to be overturned, since they spreadis hs

The result is that new unused soil is constantly being brought to the surface; and not only this, but air is introduced into the soil far below the point reached by ordinary ploughing The soil needs air just as we do; for the air hurries the decay of the soil and its preparation for the uses of the plant The i is to loosen the soil so that the roots of the plants can get their food and air more easily It also helps to keep the fields fertile by exposing the lower soil to more rapid decay

But here's the trouble: While the ordinary plough introduces air into the soil for a few inches from the surface, the subsoil, which is very important to the prosperity of the plant, is practically left out of it, so far as getting needed fresh air is concerned The long roots of the trees that, aone The burrowing animals that used to loosen up the earth, h which has to press heavily on the subsoil in order to turn the furrow, smears and compacts the earth into a hard layer, which shuts out the air, and also--to a certain extent--the water from the lower levels

[Illustration: HOW THE SOIL GETS ITS BREATH

Plants must have air to breathe, both above and below the soil, and theus here how a sandy loaions these ”storhs,” as we may call them, not only help to renew and prepare the soil in the valleys, but are a part of the machinery of delivery of new soil from mountain to valley When trees on theup the soil, which the mountain rains quickly carry to the valleys, but the roots having penetrated--as they always do--into the crevices of the rocks, bring up stones already partly decayed by the acids of the roots These stones, as the roots die, decay and so release their hold, and also go tu doard the valley

Consider howle year, and that this has been going on ever since trees grew big on the face of the earth In a stor at the rate of one every two or three minutes And, as I said, it is precisely the trees that can do the er trees--that are er trees will bend while older and stiffer trees hold on to the last Before a rass But when the roots, long and strong as they are, can no longer resist the prying of thein the winds, down go the old giants with crashes that shake the hills After a violent gale the ground is covered thick with fallen trunks[7] that lie crossed like stored wheat

[7] Muir: ”Mountains of California”

There are two trees, however, Muir says, that are never blon so long as they continue in good health These are the juniper and dwarf pine of the surip the storle's clahile their lithe, cord-like branches bend round coht holds for winds, however violent”

AT THE STORM FESTIVAL WITH MR MUIR

Trees were ae part of his life chu with the such things He cliht into the heart of the stor on Just hear hi about I las spruces that were growing close together like a tuft of grass, no one of which see accusto botanical studies, I experienced no difficulty in reaching the top of this one, and never before did I enjoy so noble an exhilaration of motion”