viii PREFACE 



other means for securing their power, which usually 

 are more expensive. Floods, besides doing enor- 

 mous damage, cover fertile bottom-lands with 

 gravel, bowlders, and debris, which ruins these 

 lands beyond redemption. The birds, fish, and 

 game, which dwell in the forests, disappear with 

 them. Springs dry up and a luxurious, well- 

 watered country becomes a veritable desert. In 

 short, the disappearance of the forests means the 

 disappearance of everything in civilization that is 

 worth while. 



These are the lessons that some of the world's 

 greatest nations have learned, in some cases through 

 sad experience. The French people, after neglect- 

 ing their forests, following the French Revolution, 

 paid the penalty. France, through her reckless 

 cutting in the mountain forests, has suffered and is 

 still suffering from devastating floods on the Seine 

 and other streams. Over one million acres were 

 cut over in the mountains, and the slash and young 

 growth that was left was destroyed by fire. As a 

 result of this forest destruction the fertihty of over 

 8,000,000 acres of tillable land was destroyed and 

 the population of eighteen departments was im- 

 poverished or driven out. Now, although over 



