144 



Trees, Stars, and Birds 



Protecting trees from horses, wagons, wires, linemen, 

 and other causes of injury may save expensive tree- 

 doctor bills, just as proper care of 

 the human mechanism usually keeps 

 it healthy without the aid of a 

 physician. 



Forestry. If the destruction of 

 the forests of this country should 

 continue in the future at the same 

 rapid rate as in the past, you might 

 live to see the day when lumber 

 would be very scarce. Preservation 

 of forests is desirable, not only for 

 the lumber and other useful products 

 they afford us, but also to prevent 

 the washing away of soil and to 

 regulate the flow of streams. On 

 the hillsides in China much land has 

 been ruined by torrents of water 

 Trees should that might have been prevented if 

 the trees at the higher levels had 

 been preserved. In that country 

 many thousands of people are drowned by floods, and 

 other thousands perish from famine caused by the floods 

 washing away- the soil or covering it beneath deposits of 

 gravel or coarse sand. Forests cause snows to melt 

 more gradually and check the flow of water at times 

 of heavy rainfall, and so tend to prevent floods. In 

 dry weather the rivers are still fed by innumerable 

 streams that bring water from the ground which is 

 covered by forests. Consequently the rivers that drain 



FIG. 95 



be protected from injury 



by animals. 



