386 APPENDIX 



the Sologne which exaggerated deforestation had reduced to a state of pestilential fever. 

 Formerly unsalable, the Landes of Gascogne are now worth 193 million dollars or more. 

 A region formerly unhealthy because of fever has to-day the name which is doubly 

 merited of Cote d'Argent; formerly devastated by sickness, the population now lives 

 in perfect health in what is actually a health resort. Forests are a potent obstacle to 

 the spread of certain diseases. Not only is the air free from deleterious gas, but there 

 is no dust or nocturnal dampness, but the acid of forest soil kills the germs of cholera, 

 typhus, the bacilli of tetanus. . . . The forestation of watersheds gives a guarantee 

 of purity. Often a sequence of deforestation is a decrease in population. It is some- 

 thing that has happened in most of the Mediterranean islands, as well as in the Azores 

 and in the Canaries. When the Venetians ruined the forests of Dalmatia, three-quarters 

 of the inhabitants were compelled to leave. In France, the thirty departments where 

 there is the most deforestation have a depopulation seven times as rapid as the fifty- 

 seven departments where the forests are maintained. Not only does the birth rate 

 diminish and the mortality increase in the deforested departments, but the inhabitants 

 still emigrate. They go in search of a hving. . . . Forests precede people, deserts 

 succeed them. . . . Deforestation has transformed Turkestan into a desert, where 

 it was formerly fertile. Deforestation has destroyed its equable climate, its former 

 ferility, and, in consequence, its population. . . . Since the planting near Sologne, 

 the local population has increased 2,250 per cent. The examples are too numerous to 

 enumerate. A Servian proverb summarizes the problem: 'He who kills a tree kills 

 a man.' 



' ' .Esthetic. — That is, the material side of the forest ; but that is not the only 

 question to consider. ... In the spring the forest is an enchantment for the eyes. 

 One sees the bare forest clothe itself from branch to branch. . . . Nature is irre- 

 sistible. Artists feel the seduction of the forest and found colonies in it as at Barbi- 

 zon. . . . The first homage of man was addressed to the great forests, eternal and 

 immovable, which cover all parts. . . . The forests, according to Chateaubriand, 

 were the early temples. This religion was that of all the peoples of antiquity: The 

 forest is sacred. . . It was worshipped by numberless tribes. . . . The 



disappearance of the forests on the plateau of Central Asia made it so uninhabitable 

 that whole tribes and races who occupied it were forced to emigrate. . . . Manon 

 had in his laws (the most ancient of the world) : ' Defend the forest against destruction. 

 One finds in any of the old religions, the myth of the sacred tree, the gods assembled 

 under its shade. . . . The imagination of the Greeks and of the Romans was peopled 

 with sylvan deities. . . . Almost always the temples were surrounded by sacred 

 forests. It was often in the forests that the gods spoke through oracles. ... In 

 Ceylon, in Spain and Persia, and in Manila, the trees are still worshipped. Saint 

 Valery, fighting against paganism, turned his anger against the nymphs of the forest 

 and the fountains. ... We know now that the disappearance of the forest de- 

 stroys the equilibrium of natural forces and makes for disastrous climatic changes, sub- 

 stituting sterility for richness, the desert for abundance, death for life. As though crazy, 

 mountaineers often say: 'After us the deluge,' without realizing that the forest means 

 water and freshness so necessary for pasturage. . . . The existence of man is 

 coupled with the existence of the forest, moreover the forest is the index of public 

 welfare and the richness of a people. It is necessary, then, that each man become 

 a friend of the trees and that our laws and our hearts protect this arborescent vegeta- 

 tion without which our civilization would perish. Against the savage violence of the 

 torrent or the deadly menace of the avalanche we must oppose the serene strength of 

 our great benefactress — the forest. Child of Nature itself, it shields, with its pro- 

 tective cover, children of humanity. The present children need it with its hving force 



