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hand when it removes the forest covering, to a certain extent, disar- 

 ranges this established order. It is unavoidable, nay, it is necessary 

 for human well-being that this should be disarranged; but to effect 

 the change in a hasty, destructive manner, without regard to the 

 operation of any natural law, is but to invoke here the disaster 

 which has already overtaken other nations. On page 261, of "Aspects 

 of the Earth," Professor Shaler has in his usual clear style portrayed 

 some o-f the consequences: "The most serious misfortune connected 

 with the reckless destruction of the forest arises from the loss of the 

 soil from large areas of land, by which regions naturally fertile have 

 been converted into deserts of irredeemable sterility. Already a 

 large part of many fertile regions has been sterilized in this fashion, 

 and each year a larger portion of this infinitely precious heritage 

 of life slips into the rivers and finds its way to the sea because we 

 have deprived it of the protecting coating of vegetation." 



We may now briefly consider what the forests may and should do 

 for us in the future. 



First of all, the forests should continue to do for us in the future 

 all that they have done in the past that is, in so far as their de- 

 creased areas will allow that to be possible; but they should do 

 more than this still. They should be made the active agent in restor- 

 ation of fertility to acres that have already become so unproductive 

 that they will no longer compensate the farmer for his labor upon 

 them. 



Mankind, and especially we of this Western world, are still young 

 in our relation to natural laws and but half awake to the impending 

 results of violations of those laws. It is true that in some of the 

 earlier seats of civilized power, deserts have taken the place of fer- 

 tile fields, and that want exists in the very regions which once were 

 the granaries of great nations. The connection between cause and 

 effect is plain enough when attention is called to it. It is hard, how- 

 ever, to induce the individual to make a personal application of even 

 the plainest lessons. We have not yet reached the point as a people 

 of recognizing that we are responsible for the prosperity of those 

 whom we have begotten, or that at least we have no moral right to 

 leave the world in a worse condition for the support of our children 

 than we found it for ourselves. We have, in full justice; but the 

 usufruct of the lands to which we hold the titles. 



This all applies, with full force, to the manner to which we impov- 

 erish our hill lands by slovenly farming and then abandon them to 

 the descending rains and melting snows, until they have passed first 

 into an unproductive condition and then into that of a desert. 



If there is any one statement which, among the farmers is more 

 common than another, it is that "farming don't pay." Of course 

 upon even that point opinions may differ, and much may depend 



