218 FOREST PLANTING. 



therefore, should never be touched, the penalty for the 

 violation of this rule being often an irreparable injury 

 to the best interests of the commonwealth. European 

 countries have enormously suffered from the reckless 

 devastations committed on the high mountains during 

 the last two centuries. Southern France above all labored 

 heavily under the inundations caused every year by the 

 torrents pouring down unchecked from the denuded 

 mountains. But the great efforts both financial and 

 scientific, made by France during the last twenty-five 

 years, have culminated in a success, of which that 

 nation can justly be proud. While France thus has 

 been expiating a great politico-economical sin of former 

 generations, that part of Austria-Hungary, which sur- 

 rounds the Adriatic Gulf, and contains a territory of 

 about four thousand square miles, is now threatened 

 with entire sterility by shifting sands, unless the 

 exertions initiated recently for reforesting the denuded 

 woodlands on the high mountains of the coast meet 

 with success. In a short time men can destroy through 

 ignorance and avarice what took nature centuries to 

 build up. If the summits and higher parts of the 

 mountains be entirely denuded, the force of the winds, 

 being there nearly irresistible, checks the growth even 

 of those grasses and sedges which usually spring up 

 there luxuriantly, when not disturbed or tied down by 

 the elements. 



In order to restock the denuded woodlands on the 

 high mountains, there should, in the first place, be 

 strictly observed the directions heretofore given in 

 regard to the regulation of the mountain waters and 

 springs and to the binding of shifting sands, as far as 

 applicable to the requirements of the locality. But the 

 greatest hindrances to be fought against here are the 

 high and destructive winds which prevent the growing 



