188 THE HUMAN SIDE OF TREES 



tion is so acute that every autumn the people of the 

 villages scatter over the hillsides to collect every bit 

 of grass, twigs and other herbage which dares to 

 show itself above the ground. This material is 

 used for fuel and fodder during the winter and the 

 country is reduced to complete desolation. 



The resulting train of evils is inevitable. At all 

 ordinary times the rivers of China are dry, rock- 

 strewn gullies. Deep wells barely yield enough 

 water to keep the people alive. Whenever the wind 

 blows at all hard the air becomes saturated with 

 great clouds of pulverised dust. It enters all houses 

 through various cracks and crevices and makes 

 vision outdoors difficult. Small particles remain 

 suspended in the air for days. 



When rain does come, it nearly always brings dis- 

 astrous floods. The water rushes down the bare 

 hillsides into the river gullies and becomes a raging 

 torrent. The flood spreads out into the adjoining 

 country and strews the fields with crop-ruining 

 stones and boulders. There is a continual washing 

 of soil from the highlands. The Yellow and other 

 rivers annually carry tons of rich earth out to sea. 



The Chinese have saved some of the hillside land 

 for cultivation by building elaborate systems of ter- 

 races. How much better it would have been to have 

 spared some of the trees which formed its original 



