Some years ago the writer was delivering a series of Chautauqua lectures. He arrived at Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, and found that the Chautauqua amphitheater was on the banks of Devil’s Lake, once bordering the town, but now receded to a distance of five miles and confined to a narrow valley. In driving from the city to the lecture hall he remarked to his escort that they seemed to be traveling along the bottom of an ancient lake. His companion said, “Yes, a lake, but not an ancient one. Fifty years ago I used to dive off a springboard right there in front of the railroad station.” In the course of his lecture the writer referred to this incident and told them that, contrary to their belief, their climate had not changed, that fifty years ago they sold their old lake to some gentlemen in Chicago and that they had been selling it over again every year since; that the former compact surface of the virgin prairie resisted the penetration of the rainfall, or at least only slowly absorbed it, and allowed it to collect in the depression adjacent to the city; but now, in the broken, permeable soil of the farmer it was taken up by millions of tiny rootlets and the hand of the Great Alchemist had transformed their lake into wheat, the sale of which was responsible for the presence of the speaker on the platform of a largely-attended Chautauqua. The lake had gone never to return unless the region were again to become the haunt of the buffalo and the prairie dog instead of civilized man. The rainfall was the same, but it was now being utilized for the benefit of mankind. In this problem of rainfall, floods, and the forests, most persons assume that when the forest is cut the land is at once denuded of vegetation. On the other hand a second growth will effectually shade the soil within a few months or a few weeks after the large trees are removed, and if the land is cleared and rendered fit for the plow, growing crops take the place of the forest-covering the greater portion of the time.