6o ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



had shaded the ground have been decimated, the 

 rains have become less frequent." Similar lan- 

 guage is laid into the mouth of Christopher Colum- 

 bus in the "Historia de S. D, Fernando Columbo,' 

 1 571, which is supposed, however, to be a spurious 

 work. 



But it was not until the beginning of the eigh- 

 teenth century that both in France and Germany 

 voices became loud regarding the evil effects of 

 forest devastation, and then, too, the growing 

 deficiency of material suppHes formed a still 

 more prominent argument for action. Thus, in 

 France, where — in spite of Sully's celebrated 

 epigrammatic warning, ''La France perira faute 

 des boisj' and Colbert's forest ordinance of 1669 — 

 only indifferent attention to a conservative forest 

 policy was paid, the members of the academic 

 royale, Buff on (1739), and later the Marquis de 

 Mirabeau (1750), exerted themselves to bring 

 about a better conception of the value of forests. 



Buffon expressed himself, as a result of extended 

 observations, that " the longer a country is inhab- 

 ited, the poorer it becomes in forest growth and 

 water." But the most forcible demonstration of 

 this relation between woods and waters was had 

 as a consequence of the extensive forest devasta- 

 tion which took place during the years of the 

 French Revolution, when an unrestricted people 

 in their greed denuded large tracts of mountain 

 woodlands in the southern mountain districts of 



