7° 



Conservation Reader 



H. W. Fairbanks 



The roots of the tree grip the soil like the 

 fingers of a great hand. 



is that, although the rain 

 is still falling, we can dis- 

 cover no rivulets. What, 

 then, becomes of the 

 water? The soft, de- 

 caying vegetation on 

 which we are walking 

 and the rotting stumps 

 and logs act like a great 

 sponge. As long as this 

 sponge can take up the falling drops, none have a chance 

 to run away. If it rains a very long time and the sponge 

 becomes saturated, the drops that creep away and finally . 

 unite in rivulets in the hollows do no harm to the soil, for 

 they cannot get at it. 



Long after the storm has passed, the earth underneath 

 the trees remains wet, while the ground out in the open has 

 become dry. A part of the water held by the decaying 

 vegetation evaporates. Another part creeps down through 

 the earth to the crevices in the rocks and feeds the springs. 

 Let us now put aside our storm clothes and journey, in 

 imagination, far away to where it seldom rains — to that 

 land which we call the desert. Here the bare rocks of the 

 mountain slopes are burned brown by the hot sun. Here 

 there is little soil and only a few httle bushes that somehow 

 manage to live. Why does not the soil gather over the 

 rocks as it does in other places? The rocks are surely 

 crumbling, for we can crush some of the pieces in our hands. 



Once in a long time it rains in this desert. Then the 

 drops descend furiously. The water gathers in rivulets 

 and these turn to torrents which sweep down the slopes. 



