158 



PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 



In the Orient, so long as the forests remained upon the higher elevations, 

 the rain belt extended inland more than one hundred miles, but as the 

 mountains were cleared of their trees, the desert encroached upon the fer- 

 tile lands, gradually but surely, until all the land became arid. 



So the rainless plains of the United States have obtruded their aridity by 

 slow degrees, as extensive forests were destroyed by fires, by ice and by man, 

 until the Pacific has been reached throughout the greater part of California. 



The logical conclusion must be that forest covered elevations controlled 

 the distribution of moisture through the atmosphere and abundant rains pre- 

 vailed ; but with the removal of these bodies of timber their influence was 

 lost and aridity was the consequence. 



When we reflect upon the vast area and density of American forests 

 which existed only a century ago, and the terrible destruction of wooded 

 lands by forest fires as well as by the ax and see the extreme carelessness 



IN PETRIFIED FOKEST 



of Americans in setting fires ana permitting them to destroy these forests 

 with no effort toward prevention by either state or National Government 

 and consider that the greater destruction of forests have occurred in the 

 Occident during the nineteenth century than in the Orient throughout the 

 thirty centuries preceding, we well may contemplate upon the future of this 

 land as more rapid climatic changes shall occur from this excessive denuda- 

 tion. It is of great importance that this nation should make earnest efforts 

 to check such wastefulness and commence a thorough system of afforestation 

 throughout the entire country. 



The soils of all the semi-arid and arid lands contain every element of 

 fertility, only wanting water to make them as productive as the most favored 

 lands of the earth. To support the population which America will have 

 but a few decades hence, every effort should be made by state and nation 

 to promote an increased rainfall in localities where moisture is insufficient. 



