162 TREES AS SHELTEE TO GEOFND TO THE LEEWAED. 



after it was unfortunatelj cut, lias relieved the city from the 

 sirocco to wMcli it had become exposed, and in a great degree 

 restored its ancient climate.'^ 



The felling of the woods on the Atlantic coast of Jutland has 

 exposed the soil not only to drifting sands, but to sharp sea- 

 winds, that have exerted a sensible deteriorating effect on the 

 chmate of that peninsula, which has no mountains to serve at 

 once as a barrier to the force of the winds, and as a storehouse of 

 moisture received by precipitation or condensed from atmos- 

 pheric vapors.f 



The local retardation of spring, so much complained of in 

 Italy, France and Switzerland, and the increased frequency of 

 late frosts at that season, appear to be ascribable to the admission 

 of cold blasts to the surface, by the felling of the forests which 

 formerly both screened it as by a wall, and communicated the 

 warmth of their soil to the air and earth to the leeward. Caimi 

 states that since the cutting down of the woods of the Apennines, 



* Le Alpi che cingono V Italia, pp. 870, 371. 



The unusual severity of the winter of 1879-80 proved very destructive to 

 this valuable forest, the larger portion of the younger trees having been com- 

 pletely killed by the frosts. 



f Bergsoe, Retentlovs VirTcsomhed, ii., p. 135. 



The following well-attested instance of a local change of climate is probably 

 to be referred to the influence of the forest as a shelter against cold winds. To 

 supply the extraordinary demand for Italian iron occasioned by the exclusion 

 of English iron in the time of Napoleon I., the furnaces of the valleys of Ber- 

 gamo were stimulated to great activity. ' ' The ordinary production of char- 

 coal not sufficing to feed the furnaces and the forges, the woods were felled, 

 the copses cut before their time, and the whole economy of the forest was 

 deranged. At Piazzatorre there was such a devastation of the woods, and 

 consequently such an increased severity of climate, that maize no longer 

 ripened. An association, formed for the purpose, effected the restoration of 

 the forest, and maize flourishes again in the fields of Piazzatorre." — Report by 

 G. Rosa, in 11 PoUtecnico, Dicembre, 1861, p. 614. 



Similar ameliorations have been produced by plantations in Belgium. In 

 an interesting series of articles by Baude, entitled, "Les Cotes de la Manche," 

 in the Bemie des Deux Mondes, I find this statement : " A spectator, placed on 

 the famous bell-tower of the cathedral of Antwerp, saw, not long since, on the 

 opposite side of the Schelde, only a vast desert plain ; now he sees a forest, 

 the limits of which are confoimded with the horizon. Let him enter within 

 its shade. The supposed forest is but a system of regular rows of trees, the 



