PRACTICAL ARBORTCULDURE 16g 
ance of a country mildewed, decayed, desolated, yet many evidences remain 
to attest its former magnificence, if not fertility. Out in the barren hills 
where rocks pile up in confusion, covered with wild vines, a haunt for the 
scorpion, lizard and fox, there will be found ruins of stately edifices, monu- 
ments graved with the records of mighty events, columns of marble that once 
gleamed in the corridors of splendid temples, images and statues which cen- 
turies ago stood in grand halls, great courts and sparkling throne rooms.” 
Dean Stanley says: “Tor miles and miles there is no appearance of pres- 
ent life or habitation, except the occasional goat herd on the hillside, or gath- 
ering of women at the wells. Yet there is hardly a hilltop of the many within 
sight which is not covered with the vestiges of some fortress or city of former 
ages.” 
The brooks of Palestine are but wadys where once flowed considerable 
streams. 
REGIONS IN THE UNITED STATES APPROACHING 
BARRENNESS. 
The United States has numerous instances where we are approaching 
the same condition of barrenness that is found in Palestine. 
The hills along the Ohio Valley within the memory of thousands of citi- 
zens were heavily timbered, affording protection and fertility to numerous 
lower fields. They were rich with the mold of a thousand years’ accumula- 
tion, and for a time were extremely fertile; wheat, corn, potatoes, timothy hay 
and other farm crops were grown upon their rich, fresh soils for many years. 
How are they now? Rocks of loose limestone thickly cover many of the hill- 
side fields, while others embedded in the hard stiff clay torment the husband- 
men who must plow their surface. Clay forms the land from which all vege- 
table mold has been eroded by torrents of rain. Strict economy and constant 
labor are required to eke out a living from these once famous, fertile wooded 
hills. 
There are similar instances in California where the greed of man, and a 
want of intelligent laws upon the subject, have removed the magnificent for- 
ests, leaving them bare of vegetation, and the soil soon washed away has left 
the primitive rocks, upon which never more will anything grow. They are 
valueless to the Nation, the State or the individual, a barren waste. In the 
great Rocky Mountain region where less than fifty years ago there were 
splendid forests, now not a hundredth part of the trees remain. Criminal 
carelessness, wanton wastefulness, forest fires without State or National pro- 
tection, and spoilation, have reduced these forests and threaten their speedy 
extermination. 
How long will America continue to feed the world from her now inex- 
haustive granaries, after her forests are destroyed and climatic changes such 
as have devastated the lands of the Orient shall have completed their work 
in the Occident? 
The world has had distinguished philosophers whose names will be chron- 
icled with high honor so long as history and civilization exist, who adopted 
