304 ARBOR DAY 



depth of the fine rivers that cross Spain in all direc- 

 tions has greatly diminished. The government, 

 well aware of the causes of the deterioration of the 

 soil and climate, has lately made earnest efforts, 

 partly to replant the old forest grounds, but has met 

 with little success, it being very difficult to make trees 

 grow on former timber land, which has been lying 

 waste for a longer time. It will take a full century's 

 time and necessitate an immense outlay of money 

 to restock Spain with sufficient timber. 



SICILY 



BY EMIL ROTHE 



LET us look at Sicily, once the great grain reservoir 

 for Rome. Since the island of plenty was despoiled 

 of its forests, it gradually lost its fertility and the 

 mildness of its climate. The ruins of proud and 

 opulent Syracuse lay in a desert, covered by sand, 

 which the hot sirocco carried over the Mediterranean 

 Sea from Africa. A few isolated, well- watered, and 

 carefully cultivated districts of very limited exten- 

 sion, is all that is left to remind the tourist of the by- 

 gone glory of Sicily. 



THE PYRENEES MOUNTAINS 



BY R. W. PHIPPS 



THE desolation of mountain regions by the clear- 

 ing of forests is strikingly illustrated in the Pyrenees. 



