of $* (gobies 



watch the water ooze from the broken walls of 

 this litter, or humus, on the upper sides of the 

 holes which I dug down into it. One of these 

 was close to a bare, tilted slope of granite. As 

 I stood watching the water slowly dripping from 

 the broken humus and rapidly racing down the 

 rocks, the thought came to me that, with the 

 same difference in speed, the run-off from the de- 

 forested land might be breaking through the 

 levees at New Orleans before the water from 

 these woods escaped and got down as far as the 

 sawmill. 



The forest might well proclaim: "As long as I 

 stand, my countless roots shall clutch and clasp 

 the soil like eagles' claws and hold it on these 

 slopes. I shall add to this soil by annually cre- 

 ating more. I shall heave it with my growing 

 roots, loosen and cover it with litter rugs, and 

 maintain a porous, sievelike surface that will 

 catch the rain and so delay and distribute these 

 waters that at the foot of my slope perennial 

 springs will ever flow quietly toward the sea. 

 Destroy me, and on stormy days the waters 

 may wash away the unanchored soil as they run 



274 



