48 MODERN FOREST ECONOMY. 



at once the earth and the atmosphere ; it refreshes the 

 moral and restores the physical in man ; it gives to him 

 enjoyment in the beauties of nature, through the splen- 

 dour of its vegetation. We see in these, titles to protection 

 against the abusive treatment to which it is subjected. It 

 is for nations, but abov all for governments, to take good 

 heed.' Caveant Consules Make. 



In most of these, if not in all of them, I find a designed 

 or undesigned reference to the effects of forests in main- 

 taining humidity of soil and climate, the loss of which, 

 though in some cases it may have been beneficial to man, 

 has been extensively so disadvantageous to man as to 

 warrant its being spoken of as an evil. More detailed and 

 specific statements are not alacking. The following are 

 cited by Schleiden in his work entitled The Plant : a 

 Biography : 



' Almost everywhere/ says Schleiden, Professor of Botany 

 in the University of Jena. ' in the great characters in which 

 nature writes her chronicles, in fossilized woods, layers of 

 peat, and the like, or even in the little notes of men, for 

 instance in the records of the Old Testament, occur proof, 

 or at least indications, that those countries which are now 

 treeless and arid deserts, part of Egypt, Syria, Persia, and 

 so forth, were formerly thickly wooded, traversed by streams 

 now dried up or shrunk within narrow bounds ; while now 

 the burning glow of the sun, and particularly the want of 

 water, allow but a sparse population. In contrast must 

 not a jovial toper laugh indeed, who looks from Johannis- 

 berg out over the Rhine country, and drinks a health in 

 Rudesheimer to the noblest of the German rivers, if he 

 recall the statement of Tacitus, that not even a cherry, 

 much less a grape, would ripen on the Rhine ! And if we 

 ask the cause of this mighty change, we are directed to 

 the disappearance of the forests. With the careless 

 destruction of the growth of trees, man interferes to alter 

 greatly the natural conditions of the country. We can 

 indeed now raise one of the finest vines upon the Rhine, 



