16 REPORT ON THE TIMBERS ie 
the upper Rhine in 1868. The clearings in the province of 
the Ardeche have produced the most melancholy results with- 
in the last thirty years, one third of its area having become 
barren; and new torrents had, in 1842, destroyed 70,000 acres. 
of land, an evil which has been going on ever since that time. 
The denudation of the crests of the Vosges has done infinite 
harm in Alsace. Many places in Provence, rich and inhab- 
ited half a century ago, have become deserts. Thousands of 
torrents have been formed within the last dozen years on the 
southern flank of the Piedmontese Alps and in Dauphiny, and 
grassy slopes have been converted into stony chasms by the 
cutting of the woods above. In the department of the lower 
Alps, between 1842 and 1852, 61,000 acres went out of culti- 
vation from this cause. In Italy, the demand for Italian iron 
during the wars of Napoleon I, the trade with England being 
cut off, necessitated vast cuttings of wood for fuel, and the 
effects are felt to this day, especially in the valley of the Po. 
In fact, there is scarcely a country on the continent of Europe 
in which the reckless destruction of forest has not been ad- 
mitted, both in popular belief and by the verdict of science, 
to have been the cause of misery, of the amount of which the 
majority even of well-informed persons in England have little 
conception.” 
Change the names in this article to those of the hills and 
mountains of Kentucky, and the process now going on in our 
State will be startlingly described. 
Another result of the reckless clearing up of forests and 
destruction of timbers is the effect produced upon the climate. 
I shall have little to say upon this subject, for it lies without 
the proper sphere of my inquiry. It is a fact, thoroughly 
proved by experience, that in the far West, as civilization 
pushes itself backward, clearing up the forests as it goes, the 
change in climate brought about in a few years is very marked. 
The winters grow bleaker and colder, the springs later, and 
the summers drier and more subject to alternations of violent 
storms and long droughts. The reason for this I believe to. 
be as follows: Heavy forests produce two effects upon cli- 
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