editorial comment 133 



"Denudatics" 



Our friends have often in the past been unfortunate in the extrav- 

 agance of their claims for the benefits of forest cover and for the 

 disasters following deforestation, which brought us the sobriquet of 

 "denudatics." We had hoped that the malady had passed away and 

 that the discussion of the forest influences had finally come into saner 

 channels. We were therefore sadly disappointed to see a revival of 

 these extravagances in a pamphlet issued by the Texas Department of 

 Agriculture, prepared by a member of the Scientific Society of San 

 Antonio, entitled "Deforestation and Reforestation as Affecting Cli- 

 mate, Rain, and Production." 



We had expected in a publication issued under such auspices to find 

 new data on this controversial subject; instead we found a virulent 

 outbreak of the disease — extravagance in the worst form. Surely, the 

 author is a worthy member of the denudatics. 



Here, in vivid, exuberant, and persuasive language, it must be con- 

 fessed, are dished up the discredited historic evidences of Asia Minor, 

 Mesopotamia, and all the Mediterranean countries, not forgetting the 

 Sahara, as a result of deforestation. Indeed, it is claimed that "all 

 deserts have been man-made." We are assured that: "It is axiomatic 

 with scientists ( ? j that no country was originally a desert." "It is 

 certain that the arid lands we have in North America have been made 

 so by the extermination of the trees through forest fires and possibly 

 the destruction of trees for fuel and clearing for cultivation by the 

 great prehistoric agricultural people who preceded the nomadic In- 

 dians." And these preposterous theories are elaborated on legendary 

 basis. Climatology is "not in it" ! 



The author is not happier in his physiological expose. "Trees are 

 inducers of rain. . . . When the air is moist, they absorb the damp- 

 ness and thriftily store it away in capacious reservoirs of millions of 

 tubes in the trunks and limbs of the trees, and when parched nature 

 looks upward and pra\s for water, like Dives did to Abraham and 

 Lazarus, these same little 'miracles of design' draw on the supply of 

 water in the tree that they have stored away and that the rootlets have 

 absorbed from the earth and send the precious liquid forth into the air, 

 an unseen exhalation to be condensed by the atmosphere and to fall in 

 benedictory showers or refreshing dew. . . . Other trees that need 

 more water will, if growing near by, absorb it from these generous 

 neighbors — as, for example, the magnolia will flourish at Los .\ngelcs. 

 Cal., it near t)thcr trees, but will die if it be planted alone." 



