THE FARMER'S RELATIONS TO THE STATE. 47 



Italy, Switzerland, France and Spain, and other countries, 

 furnish us Avith plenty of examples to show us the sad results 

 which are sure to follow a too great destruction of the forests. 

 Not only have vast areas in these countries been washed bare 

 of their soil, and the slopes cut and gullied by the rushing 

 torrents, thus rendering particulnr regions next to worthless, 

 but the resources, and prosperit}^ ^nd power of the whole 

 State have also been most seriously reduced and crippled by 

 the reduction of the forest areas below what the laws of 

 nature allow. 



A little more than a century ago France had, by estimate, 

 about 42,000,000 acres of forests — an amount not greater 

 thau should have been permanently retained ; but in 1860, 

 so great had been the destruction, that the forest areas of 

 France were reduced to 20,000,000 acres ; thus greatly 

 enfeebling the empire, and well causing anxious forebodings 

 in regard to the century to come. 



Russia is already beginning to suffer because she has not 

 properly cared for her forests. Not only is wood beginning 

 to be scarce and dear, but her great rivers, the Volga, and 

 others, the great thoroughfares of commerce, are drying up 

 on account of the removal of the forests from their sources. 



Spain, once so flourishing and powerful, allowed her 

 forests to be destro^^ed ; and when she would rebuild her 

 fleets and enlarge and perfect her navy, the price of timber 

 was so high that the treasury had not suflScient means to 

 purchase the needful supply ; and so she lost her prestige 

 upon the sea, and her power and dominion in the world. 



I said that we are cutting our forests faster than they grow. 

 And if measures be not taken to inform and interest and 

 instruct the whole people, in regard to the relation which the 

 forests sustain to our material interests ; if there be no check 

 to the destruction now going on in nearly all parts of our 

 country where forests still remain, we, like the nations of the 

 East, shall soon begin to reap the bitter fruits of our waste- 

 fulness, short-sightedness and neglect. Nay, in the scarcity 

 and consequently high prices of wood, lumber and timber, 

 we have already begun to reap. 



Not less than a fifth or a quarter of every country or State 

 should be occupied with forests. To-day, hardly a State in 



