60 ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



had shaded the ground have been decimated, the 

 rains have become less frequent." Similar lan- 

 guage is laid into the mouth of Christopher Colum- 

 bus in the " Historia de S. D. Fernando Columbo," 

 1571, which is supposed, however, to be a spurious 

 work. 



But it was not until the beginning of the eigh- 

 teenth century that both in France and Germany 

 voices became loud regarding the evil effects of 

 forest devastation, and then, too, the growing 

 deficiency of material supplies formed a still 

 more prominent argument for action. Thus, in 

 France, where in spite of Sully's celebrated 

 epigrammatic warning, "La France pMra faute 

 des hois," and Colbert's forest ordinance of 1669 

 only indifferent attention to a conservative forest 

 policy was paid, the members of the academic 

 royale, Buff on (1739), and later the Marquis de 

 Mirabeau (1750), exerted themselves to bring 

 about a better conception of the value of forests. 



Buffon expressed himself, as a result of extended 

 observations, that " the longer a country is inhab- 

 ited, the poorer it becomes in forest growth and 

 water." But the most forcible demonstration of 

 this relation between woods and waters was had 

 as a consequence of the extensive forest devasta- 

 tion which took place during the years of the 

 French Revolution, when an unrestricted people 

 in their greed denuded' large tracts of mountain 

 woodlands in the southern mountain districts of 



