TACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 169 



ance of a country mildewed, decayed, desolated, yet many evidences remain 

 to attest its former magnificence, if not fertility. Out in the barren hills 

 where rocks pile up in confusion, covered with wild vines, a haunt for the 

 scorpion, lizard and fox, there will be found ruins of stately edifices, monu- 

 ments graved with the records of mighty events, columns of marble that once 

 gleamed in the corridors of splendid temples, images and statues which cen- 

 turies ago stood in grand halls, great courts and sparkling throne rooms." 



Dean Stanley says: "For miles and miles there is no appearance of pres- 

 ent life or habitation, except the occasional goat herd on the hillside, or gath- 

 ering of women at the wells. Yet there is hardly a hilltop of the many within 

 sight which is not covered with the vestiges of some fortress or city of former 

 ages." 



The brooks of Palestine are but wadys where once flowed considerable 

 streams. 



REGIONS IN THE UNITED STATES APPROACHING 

 BARRENNESS. 



The United States has numerous instances where we are approaching 

 the same condition of barrenness that is found in Palestine. 



The hills along the Ohio Valley within the memory of thousands of citi- 

 zens were heavily timbered, affording protection and fertility to numerous 

 lower fields. They were rich with the mold of a thousand years' accumula- 

 tion, and for a time were extremely fertile; wheat, corn, potatoes, timothy hay 

 and other farm crops were grown upon their rich, fresh soils for many years. 

 How are they now? Rocks of loose limestone thickly cover many of the hill- 

 side fields, while others embedded in the hard stiff clay torment the husbaivd- 

 men who must plow their surface. Clay forms the land from which all vege- 

 table mold has been eroded by torrents of rain. Strict economy and constant 

 labor are required to eke out a living from these once famous, fertile wooded 

 hills. 



There are similar instances in California where the greed of man, and a 

 want of intelligent laws upon the subject, have removed the magnificent for- 

 ests, leaving them bare of vegetation, and the soil soon washed away has left 

 the primitive rocks, upon which never more will anything grow. They are 

 valueless to the Nation, the State or the individual, a barren waste. In the 

 great Rocky Mountain region where less than fifty years ago there were 

 splendid forests, now not a hundredth part of the trees remain. Criminal 

 carelessness, wanton wastefulness, forest fires without State or National pro- 

 tection, and spoliation, have reduced these forests and threaten their speedy 

 extermination. 



How long will America continue to feed the world from her now inex- 

 haustive granaries, after her forests are destroyed and climatic changes such 

 as have devastated the lands of the Orient shall have completed their work 

 in the Occident? 



The world has had distinguished philosophers whose names will be chron- 

 icled with high honor so long as history and civilization exist, who adopted 



