Forests and Rainfall

Abstract

SIR W. SCHLICH, F.R.S., Professor of Forestry at Oxford, writing in the new edition of the “Encyclopaedia Britannica,” defines a forest, as “an area which is for the most part set aside for the production of timber and other forest produce, or which is expected to exercise certain climatic effects, or to protect the locality against injurious influences.” One of the most important of the climatic effects ascribed by some to forests is the increased amount of precipitation, not only in the forest areas themselves, but also-in the country surrounding them, produced by the influence of the forests upon the moisture-laden air which passes over them.