10 FOEEST CULTUEE AND 



man in destroying the trees and plants which once 

 clothed the surface and sheltered it from the sun and 

 the winds. As this shelter was removed the desert 

 approached, gaining new power as its area increased, 

 until it crept over vast regions once populous and fer- 

 tile, and left only the ruins of former magnificence. " 

 ' ' There are parts of Asia Minor, of Northern Africa, 

 of Greece, and even of Alpine Europe, where the 

 operation of causes set in action by man has brought 

 the face of the earth to a desolation almost as com- 

 plete as that of the moon. And though, within the 

 brief space of time men call the ^ historical period,^ 

 they are known to have been covered with luxuriant 

 woods, verdant pastures, and fertile meadows, they 

 are now too far deteriorated to bereclaimable by man. 

 Nor can they become again fitted for human use except 

 through great geological changes, or other mysterious 

 influences or agencies of which we have no present 

 knowledge, and over which we have no prospective 

 control. The earth is fast becoming an unfit home for 

 its noblest inhabitants, and another era of equal human 

 crime and human improvidence, and of like duration 

 with that through which traces of that crime and im- 

 providence extend, would reduce it to such a condition 

 of impoverished productiveness, of shattered surface, 

 of climatic excess, as to threaten the depravation, 

 barbarism, and perhaps even extinction of the spe- 

 cies." 



"In European countries, especially in Itaty, Germany, 

 Austria, and France, where the injuries resulting 

 from the cutting off of timber have long since been 

 realized, the attention of governments has been turned 

 to this subject by the necessities pf the case, an4 con. 



