1908 



A LETTER TO OUR MEMBERS 



79 



of Waters," the forest is the father of 

 the Mississippi. 



J. J. JUSSERAND, 



Ambassador from France. 



Public 

 Health 



The destruction of our 

 forests . . . robs our 

 people of a great health- 

 giving influence. The heavily-timber- 

 ed White Mountains have long been 

 a resort in which the tired and jaded 

 might obtain rest and refreshment. 

 . . . These regions will become in- 

 creasingly a resort for the growing 

 population of the great Middle West 

 as well as New England, unless de- 

 spoiled by the selfish, short-sighted 

 spirit of commercialism now so sam- 

 pant. 



Vincent Y. Bowditch, 



Boston Physician. 



China's 

 Woe 



Large areas of northern 

 China have been ren- 

 dered uninhabitable in 

 consequence of deforestation, the hills 

 being reduced to rocky skeletons and 

 the valleys being filled with coarse sand 

 and gravel. 



Throughout northern China the 



floods which have caused the Yellow 

 River to receive the name "The Grief 

 of China" are an immediate result of 

 the deforested condition of the hills 

 and the consequent rapid run-ofif of 

 the spring and summer rains. 



The conditions resulting from de- 

 forestation cited in the two preceding 

 statements add greatly to the severity 

 of famines, since they very greatly re- 

 duce the productive area and occasion 

 the failure of crops in flooded regions. 



Bailey Wihhis, 

 U. S. Geological Survey, and Carnegie 

 Institute. 



Let every member of the Associa- 

 tion continue his membership and if 

 possible, advance it to a higher rank. 

 Let him enlist at least one new mem- 

 ber, or present a membership to a 

 friend as a Christmas gift. Let him 

 write to his Congressman to press 

 the Appalachian Bill, and let him at- 

 tend, if possible, the annual meeting 

 and aid, by presence and voice, in pro- 

 moting the work of conserving, for 

 the highest use of all the people for 

 all time, our forests and the vital in- 

 terests with which they are so inti- 

 mately joined. 



DESECRATION 



By Harold Trowbridge Pulsifer 



The solitary stillness of the wood, 



The long deep silence of the morning calm, 



The melody that nature understood 



When all the world lay cradled in His arm; 



The solemn incense of the fragrant pine, 



The half-heard music of a hidden choir, 



The rhythm of a chant almost divine, 



Sung underneath the starry altar-fire — 



Has ended in the sullen sounding blows 



Of crashing steel along the wooded aisle, 



In blackened stumps above the winter snows, 



In land that has forgotten how to smile; 



A desert where the north wind sighing sweeps 



Above the tomb in which the forest sleeps. 



From The Outlook of April 6, 



1907 



