36 WILLIAM SAUNDERS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF 
the soil with organie matter, which the roots of trees search out, follow and feed upon, 
and alter it as completely as if it were burnt, and elevate it into the upper air in forms of 
beauty. 
Data for the investigation of the influence of forests on the all-important question of 
rainfall, must be looked for in the eastern part of the world, where deforestation has been 
greatest, and where large districts have thus been entirely altered in their character and 
capabilities. 
When the Jews first settled in Palestine it was a proverbialy fertile country, a land 
flowing with milk and honey, and favored with a pleasant climate. Then the mountain 
ranges of the country were densely covered with forests, in which the stately cedar of 
Lebanon held a prominent place. The gradually increasing population of Palestine 
enjoyed comfort and abundance during many centuries, but a gradual devastation of the 
forests, which was finally completed by their enemies, produced a wonderful change. 
The hills of Galilee, once rich pasturing grounds for large herds of cattle, are now sterile ; 
the Jordan has become an insignificant stream, and several beautiful smaller rivers men- 
tioned in the Bible, appear now as stony runs, which carry off the surplus water resulting 
from the melting snow in spring, but are completely dry during the greater part of the 
year. Some few valleys enriched by the soil which has been washed down from the hills, 
have retained a portion of their fertility, but the country as a whole is arid and desolate 
and not capable of sustaining one-fourth of the population it contained in the time of 
Solomon. 
Under the reign of the Moorish Caliphs, the Iberian peninsula resembled a vast 
garden, yielding grain and fruit in the greatest abundance. Then the sierras and 
mountain slopes were covered with a luxuriant growth of timber, which was afterwards 
wantonly destroyed under the rule of the Christian kings, while large herds of half wild 
goats and sheep prevented the spontaneous growth of trees which would otherwise have 
taken place on the neglected lands. Now nearly all the plateau lands of Spain are desert- 
like and unfit for agriculture, because of the scarcity of rain. 
Portions of Sicily, Greece, Italy, France, and other European countries have suffered in 
like manner, and the plains and hillsides, once luxuriant with verdure, yield now but 
scanty crops, or are converted into arid wastes. In France the government has adopted 
a regular system of forest planting, which is proving a great success, and which in course 
of time will doubtless remedy the evils complained of, repay the expenses incurred and 
yield a revenue to the public treasury. 
Germany, which had also suffered from deforestation, was one of the first European 
nations to set to work energetically and systematically to remedy it by extensive planting. 
The work was begun nearly two hundred years ago, and during this period the country 
has been brought from the condition of a wood famine to a state in which there is now 
grown annually more wood than the country needs to use. It is estimated that with the 
systematic planting now regularly carried out, Germany can cut from ten to fifteen billions 
of feet of lumber from its thirty-five millions of acres of wood lands yearly, for all time to 
come, a product from which the State is said to receive a net revenue of nearly forty millions 
of dollars per annum. Besides all this, while in many other countries the climate and 
soil have deteriorated to an alarming extent, Germany has gained in fertility, and tracts of 
