Canadian Forestry Journal, April, 1918 



1647 



industrial or engineering undertaking, 

 so that the time is coming, and very 

 soon, when the engineer, instead 

 of receiving the reward that capital 

 is willing to offer, will walk hand 

 in hand with the capitalist on an 

 equal footing, and will share in 



the rewards that the other has 

 heretofore enjoyed." 



An Oak Tree in one of the Com- 

 peigne Forests, on the French War 

 Front, is 6 ft. in diameter and 

 110 ft. high. It has been named 

 "The Oak of the Allies." 



Forests and Civilization 



By Ellwood Wilson 



Forests and civilization are in- 

 separably bound together. Not all 

 forested countries have reached a 

 high degree of civilization, but no 

 unforested country has ever reached 

 a state of culture. Egypt, Babylon, 

 and Assyria may be mentioned as 

 exceptions, but the probability is 

 that they were all forested at the 

 zenith of their progress, and that 

 their decline may be directly attrib- 

 uted to the disappearance of their 

 forest wealth. The whole north 

 coast of Africa, Palestine, and China 

 were at one time well forested, 

 and, with the vanishing of the trees, 

 these civilizations waned and are 

 now at a low ebb. China is probably 

 the best example of deforestation 

 which we have. Originally a 

 country of great wealth, both in 

 timber and agricultural lands the 

 removal of the woods has, over 

 very large areas, destroyed the farms 

 by allowing the rainfall to rush 

 down the hillsides in the form of 

 torrents, carrying large amounts of 

 sand and gravel, which have covered 

 up and destroyed the arable lands. 

 To-day China is a desolate, tree- 

 less country, forced to use dung 

 for fuel, and to carry on the most 

 intensive form of agriculture in order 

 to wring a meagre sustenance from 

 an impoverished soil. 



Where timber is removed from 

 hills and mountains by lumbering, 

 fire almost always follows and burns 

 not only the timber but also the 

 soil, right down to the rock. If 

 the formation is not rock the situation 



is far worse, for the soil is washed 

 down year after year into the fertile 

 valleys, destroying them completely. 

 In the Cevennes and Pyrenees 

 districts in France 8,000,000 acres 

 of farm land were destroyed by 

 floods, and a huge sum of money 

 had to be spent by the government in 

 reclaiming them. Where forests are 

 removed in sandy country the 

 wind soon strips the soil of the 

 meagre remaining cover and carries 

 the sand for miles over the surround- 

 ing country, converting it into a 

 desert. This happened along the 

 west coast of France, and millions 

 were spent to arrest the devastation. 

 An old friend of mine, Senor Don 

 Ricardo Codorniu, a Spanish for- 

 ester, has spent his life in this 

 work of stemming torrents, replant- 

 ing denuded mountain slopes, often 

 carrying earth up on mule-back to 

 start the nucleus of a future protec- 

 tive forest. His work in connection 

 with drifting sands has been most 

 interesting, especially where the sand 

 had commenced to invade a vil- 

 lage, burying houses in the suburbs. 

 Wattle fences had first to be built, 

 and between these pines were 

 planted, and when the sand had 

 piled up against the first line of fence 

 this had to be raised to prevent 

 the little trees from being buried 

 before they could fulfil their func- 

 tion. Nor do w^e have to go so far 

 afield to see the results of axe and 

 fire. Travel west on the C.P.R. 

 through Ontario; take the Canadian 

 Northern to Lake St. John, or the 



