Forest Cultuee. 15 



of restoring the forests, and winning back their squandered wealth 

 and their protection, most clearly shown. Moreover the circum- 

 stances and conditions of the French rivers are very sinailar to 

 those in many parts of the United States. Let the noble forests 

 that now feed the perennial springs of the Hudson be sacrificed 

 to the greed of the speculator, and that magnificent stream would 

 shrink to the rank of a mountain torrent, a curse rather than a. 

 blessing to the smiling fields it waters and the prosperous cities it 

 has nourished. 



On the general question of the diminution of rainfall and con- 

 sequent shrinkage of rivers, the most important recent evidence 

 is that of Councellor Gustav Wex, of Vienna, based on the care- 

 ful observations of many years, and reported by him to the 

 Academy of Arts and Sciences at Vienna in 1878. He showed 

 conclusively that in the last fifty years the average level of the 

 river Elbe has fallen seventeen inches; of the Rhine, twenty-four 

 inches; of the Danube, fifty-five inches. And both himself and 

 the Academy agreed in attributing this result to the felling of 

 forests around the sources of these streams. No less an authority 

 than the last edition of the Kyicydopaxh'a Britannica says, *' there 

 can be no doubt that one of the causes of the terrible famines 

 (of IST-i and since) in India and China is the unwise denudation 

 of mountain slopes." 



Examples of the disastrous effort produced on climate by the 

 destruction of forests are so numerous and well known, that I 

 omit any mention of them. 



We may now understand the gravity of the natural question 

 excited by all these examples ; what are we to expect in Amer- 

 ica? This country is no exception to the laws of nature. It 

 had a century ago the finest forests of the world ; it has now less 

 forest area than it needs, and the work of destruction is going on 

 faster than ever before. What shall shield us from the disas- 

 trous consequences which other countries have suffered ? We al- 

 ready feel the first symptoms of that " general deterioration of 

 the earth," which is nature's "vengeance for the violation of her 

 harmonies," in uncertain climate, dried-up streams, floods ever 

 increasing in frequency, and ruinous effect, rivers no longer nav- 



