SUNSHINE AND SHADE. 269 



A portion of every country must be " field " 

 (German " Feld ") or cultivated ground where the 

 trees are " felled " ; but it is also necessary that a 

 certain proportion of every country should be " wild " 

 (German " Wald "), as were once the " Weald " of 

 Kent, the " Wolds " of Yorkshire, and the Cotes- 

 " wolds " of Gloucestershire. If this law is disregarded, 

 a retribution follows. The outraged Dryades may 

 not revenge themselves as did the nymph in Lowell's 

 pretty poem " Rhsecus," but the punishment is not 

 less certain. The climate is destroyed by deboisement, 

 and in some cases a country is rendered uninhabit- 

 able. Other mischief follows the wholesale cutting 

 down of trees. At Trieste, for instance, the shipping 

 has been repeatedly injured by storms of wind from 

 the north-east since the unwooding of the Karst. 



The Maritime Alps are now being rewooded at a 

 great expense ; and not a day too soon, for I read 

 lately in the report of the Alpine Club that the 

 forests of Pine and Larch (Larix] on the mountains 

 north of Nice were disappearing rapidly. And I am 

 assured by a person who has known the Eiviera for a 

 long series of years that this " " deboisement " has 

 coincided with a change of climate for the worse. 



How unsightly, how desolate, are barren rocks, 

 compared with pine-clad slopes ! Look northward 

 from any point of the Nice valley, and you will see a 

 triangular hill which forms the southern shoulder of 

 the Ferion. On the same ridge, a little higher up, 

 stands the Deserted Village. This triangular hill-side 

 was a short time ago so completely denuded that it 

 bore the name of Bare bones, " Costa Pelada " ; but 

 now, rewooded, its verdure strikes the eye at once. 



