EVILS FOLLOWING DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS. 45 



12. 'It is not wars which have brought most evil upon 

 the region of the Mediterranean, but aridity, brought on 

 and aggravated by the reckless destruction of woods, and 

 by the excessive abuse of pasturing sheep on the moun- 

 tains.' Deherain. 



13. ' The clearing away of woods in that lies the prin- 

 cipal cause of the arrest to which agriculture has been 

 subjected in Algeria/ M. Calmels Genie Civil. 



14. l With a view to preserve our nomades from utter 

 ruin, the Administration has adopted a measure which is 

 likely to be afterwards bitterly deplored : it has authorised 

 the depasturing of flocks in the State forests. Now, to let 

 sheep, goats, and camels ramble in the woods, or rather 

 bushy shrubberies, of Africa, is to doom these to a rapid 

 disappearance, while the forest should be preserved as the 

 most precious of all possessions, extended and carefully 

 treated as the most powerful agent in promoting fertility. 



' The clearing away of forests, which induces aridity, 

 appears to me to be the cause of sterility.' Deherain Pro- 

 fessor in the Museum of the School of Grignon Genie Civil. 



15. 'The phylloxera has its propagation facilitated, or 

 has the way prepared for it by the most powerful and most 

 general enemy of this entire region. It is manifest that 

 this is the enemy, which equally with that or still more, 

 should command our attention and our vigilant watch- 

 fulness, and that against which we ought to contend with 

 our greatest energy. 



' With us it is the enemy not only of the vine, but of all 

 our cultures: this enemy which successively and progres- 

 sively has made the peasant to give up the culture of flax, 

 of hemp, of maize, and of grain ; this enemy which has 

 constrained us to substitute for the culture of the cereals, 

 which had become almost unproductive, that of the vine, 

 an arborescent culture with deeper roots ; this enemy, 

 which is increasing every day, will ere long come to ruin 

 even the culture of bushes and fruit-trees; this enemy as 

 terrible, as immediate, as the phylloxera, is the DKOUGHT.' 

 Jules Maistre, 



