1908 A LETTER TO OUR .MEMBERS 79 



of Waters," the forest is the father of floods which have caused the Ydl.\v 



the Mississippi. River to receive the name "The Gi 



J. J. JUSSKKAM.. of China" are an immediate result of 



Ambassador from France. the deforested condition of the hill- 



and the consequent rapid run-off 



Public The destruction of our the s P rin g and summer rains. 

 Wealth forests . . . robs our The conditions resulting from de- 

 people of a great health- forestation cited in the two preced 

 giving influence. The heavily-timber- statements add greatly to the severity 

 ed White Mountains have long been of famines, since they very greatly re- 

 a resort in which the tired and jaded duce the productive area and occasion 

 might obtain rest and refreshment, the failure of crops in flooded regions. 

 . . . These regions will become in- BAILKY WILLIS, 

 creasingly a resort for the growing U. S. Geological Survey, and Carne 

 population of the great Middle West Institute. 

 as well as New England, unless de- 

 spoiled by the selfish, short-sighted Let every member of the Associa- 

 spirit of commercialism now so sam- tion continue his membership and if 

 pant. possible, advance it to a higher rank. 

 VINCENT Y. BOWDITCH, Let him enlist at least one new mem- 

 Boston Ph\sician. her, or present a membership to a 



friend as a Christmas gift. Let him 

 write to his Congressman to press 



China's ^!"S e a , reas of northern the Appalachian Bill, and let him at- 

 Woe Jima have been ren- tend> if pos sible, the annual meeting 

 dered uninhabitable in and aid< by pre sence and voice, in pro- 

 consequence of deforestation, the hills mot jng the work of conserving, for 

 emg reduced to rocky skeletons and t he highest use of all the people for 

 ie valleys being filled with coarse sand all t ime. our forests and the vital in- 

 terests with which they are so inti- 

 Throughout northern China the mately joined. 



DESECRATION 



By Harold Trowbridge Pulsifer 



The solitary stillness of the wood, 

 The long deep silence of the morning calm. 

 The melody that nature understood 

 \Yheii all the world lay cradled in His arm; 

 The solemn incense of the fragrant pine. 

 The half-heard music of a hidden choir. 

 The rhythm of a chant almost divine. 

 Sung underneath the starry altar-tire 

 Has ended in the sullen sounding I>1<>\\ 

 Of crashing steel along the wooded a: 

 In blackened stumps above the winter sn< 

 In land that has forgotten h>\v to smile; 

 A desert where the north wind sighing - 

 Above the tomb in which the forest sleep* 



From Tl- 1907 



