INTRODUCTION 



Esdraelon with Lord Allenby that day, he did not speak 

 of birds. He spoke of trees. He told me that this country, 

 which was now so bare and waterless had once blossomed 

 like the richest valley in Spain, indeed had once been the 

 Biblical land of milk and honey instead of brown and 

 parched and baked as we saw it. 



"Why?" I asked. 



To which Allenby replied: 



"Trees!" meaning — the absence of trees. 



Man is ever wasteful of the rich green life of the forest. 

 He destroys the trees with a prodigal hand. Then often 

 Nature takes her vengeance. Man destroys the trees to 

 make farm land for himself. Then, after a while that 

 farm land lapses into desert. For the trees hold the soil 

 and the soil holds the moisture of the land. When man 

 destroys the leafy woods the rain washes the soil away 

 and the bare, stony expanse remains. In Palestine the 

 hand of man long ago swept away the forests. Century 

 after century passed. Army after army swept over this 

 ancient corridor. The rains came in their season, and each 

 year the floods ran more quickly from the bare surface of 

 the hills and slopes, with the result that today when the 

 dry season comes the land is swiftly converted into blis- 

 tering desert . 



Lord Allenby explained this to me in a few brief 

 words, and then told me that if the land were to be re- 

 stored to its ancient fertile state it must be done by refor- 

 estation. Trees must be planted so that forests will grow 

 up again and hold the humus and make soft earth which 



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