INTRODUCTION. xvu 



laws The Spaniards deliberately destroyed the woods as they were 

 the refuse of the Indians. To-day the irrigation system of the plateau 

 is mostly decayed, the lake of Mexico itself has shrunk, the teeming 

 population, the famous gardens, the general prosperity of the country 



has vanished. 4 ' 



" Following excessive disforestation, the local climate becomes 

 worse The prosperity of agriculture, the health of the inhabitants, 

 the public fortune itself depends upon a normal proportion of forest. 

 This percentage is itself an element to regulate the world's circulation 

 of cloud rain, snow, flood and even the ocean. The denuded zones 

 in the mountains must be re-stocked in order to re-establish order in 

 nature without which all economics are profoundly upset; it is partly 

 lue to' the absence of forests that one must attribute the burning 

 climate of the interior of Asia, Africa and Australia. The destruc- 

 tion of stands has produced disastrous climatic changes in -Greece 

 inEussia ... in Asia Minor, and in certain regions of India. All 

 history agrees on this point. It shows clearly the disastrous effects 

 of great disforestation on climate. Aristotle, Pliny and Strabo 

 predicted to their contemporaries the sterility which would follow 

 disforestation . . . which, in lowering the humidity necessary for 

 vegetation ... has brought on something more terrible than any war, 

 namely the decadence of the most powerful empires. At the middle of 

 the seventeenth century, the Chinese had transformed Tartary into 

 a desert by removing the trees which protected it 5 . 



Benskin 6 has given instance after instance in India of the 

 destruction of fertile land on account of denudation. The dessication 

 of the country is in active progress. With forest destruction on he 

 hills the streams dry up or become raging torrents, their beds choked 

 with cUSbris. Springs of drinking water disappear, cholera becomes 

 endemic The forests of the plains where the Moghul Emperor hunted 

 have gone and in their place we have horrible ravines. The 



4 Conquest of Mexico PRESCOTT. 



8 La Forel JACQUOT. Studies in French Forestry WOOLSEY. 



Afforestation in the l/n/te/ProWncej-BtNSKiN. 



3 



