110 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY, 



XIII. Botanical Geography and Biological Utilisation of Soil. 

 Extracts from a paper by Marcel Hardy, published in 

 Scottish Geographical Magazine,^ 1902. 



It is interesting to compare, by contrast, what has been the 

 action of man on his surroundings. From this point of view the 

 majority of the countries bordei'ing on the Mediterranean furnish 

 the most striking examples. That these regions, formerly 

 covered with forests, have been ravaged in utter disregard of 

 natural laws, has been many times demonstrated. We know 

 that this is the result of short-sighted clearings, of an ignorant 

 and mischievous treatment of the forests, and of the excessive 

 pasturing of sheep and goats. This blow at the equilibrium of 

 nature could not remain unpunished. The first consequence has 

 been the disappearance of one of the most important resources of 

 the country, of an object of the first necessity — the wood. At 

 the same time, agriculture has been stricken in one of its funda- 

 mental elements ; for the waters, instead of the more or less 

 abundant and regular flow which they might have had, have 

 become quite intermittent and temporary, but at the same time 

 torrential and destructive. Now the soil, formerly held together 

 on the slopes by the vegetation, is dried up by the sun and 

 washed away by the rains. Freshets have become frequent and 

 destructive in consequence of the enormous quantities of materials 

 worn away from the mountains with which the rivers and streams 

 are charged. The climate itself has acquired an extreme and 

 irregular character. Thus have been formed those immense 

 unproductive stretches which, in certain parts, give to these 

 unhappy regions the aspect of a desert. 



The Alps and the Pyrenees, exposed to the same treatment, 

 have been similarly aflTected. The deforestation paralyses the 

 development of the pastoral industries in these regions by lower- 

 ing the limits of forest vegetation. The valleys are ravaged 

 by a devastating erosion. Entire mountains slide down slowly, 

 carrying with them the pastoral villages which they bear on their 

 surface, accumulating ruin and disaster. The human habitation 

 is little by little driven back towards the plain. 



These processes do not affect the mountains alone. For, by 



' Extracted by permission. 



