Tree Of Life: Johnny Appleseed

Tree(s) of Life The folk hero Johnny Appleseed is known for planting hundreds of trees across the North American frontier, but few know that this story is more fact than fiction. His real name was John Chapman, and for forty years he traveled from Philadelphia to Ohio, scavenging apple seeds from cider mills which he would eventually plant in scattered locations across the country (Means 82). Thanks to certain homestead acts which considered his trees to be land stakes, it is estimated Chapman controlled over twelve hundred acres of land by the time he died, each acre holding as many as a hundred apple trees (Means 81). Little did Mr. Chapman know, however, that every tree he planted would fix up to two kg of carbon dioxide per hour during …show more content…
After ten thousand years of use, wood supplies have been slowly withering to what they are today. It has been difficult to accurately project just how much damage we have done to the world’s forests, but it is roughly estimated that humans have cut, cleared, and burned 46% of the approximate 15 billion acres of original forest cover (Bryant 13); at this rate, considering the rise of computer integrated machinery and our recent boom in population, we will be at half the total amount of trees recommended by eons of natural selection in just a few decades. Without these trees, the balance of nature teeters towards chaos. On top of this, concentrations of carbon dioxide have never been higher. Before the Industrial Revolution, CO2 levels in the atmosphere were measured to be around 280 ppm (part per million), which has since risen to more than 400 ppm (Butler 1). With carbon dioxide production so high and on the rise, it is obvious that more trees are needed than ever before to counter global warming, and yet we continue to remove them faster than we can repair. The effects of deforestation are only just beginning to be seen, and without forest management on a global scale it will soon be felt by the future generations to …show more content…
Trees play many major roles in our climate, but vary depending on the needs of a region. Roots that store water drive deep down into the Earth, holding soil together and absorbing moisture from underground which is then released into the atmosphere in a process called transpiration (Thomas 19-23). This moisture is essential to the water cycle, without which water from deep within the Earth would be unable to escape back into the atmosphere (see appendix). Without these trees’ roots, regions of all types would be affected in different ways. Topsoil would simply blow away without trees, and would cause lands to become infertile, as well as creating sediment buildup in rivers. Since land cannot absorb water without topsoil, the rains in mountain regions would build momentum as runoff, resulting in mudslides high in the hills and mass floods down in the valleys (Chakravarty 16). The buildup of sediment in rivers would cause additional flooding, until a region 's natural water supply drained completely to lower ground, eventually causing drought and desertification (Chakravarty 15-16). Converting the new desert land back to forest would be difficult, but experiments are being done today to form tree shelterbelts for crops in semi-arid regions with great success. These belts greatly reduce wind erosion, improve soil moisture, and can boost crop yields up to 35%