Injuries resulting from excessive Clearings. 



27 



lire during a civil war. The conse- 

 quences were not long in following, 

 and has transformed this country into 

 a, kind of arid desert. The water- 

 courses are dried up, and the irrigat- 

 ing canals empty. The moving 

 sands of the desfirt, being no longer 

 restrained by barriers of forests, are 

 every day gaining upon the land, 

 and will finish by transforming it 

 into a desert as desolate as the soli- 

 tudes that separate it from Khiva." 



spersed by rivulets, reservoirs and 

 canals, present a most lively picture 

 of industry and happiness. The rich 

 valley of Sogd produces so great an 

 abundance of grapes, melons, pears, 

 and apples, that they are exported to 

 Persia, and even to Hindostan.'" 



The same writer (Malte-Brun), 

 again citing from the same author, 

 says: "'I have often been at Kohen- 

 dis, the ancient capital of Bucharia. 

 I have cast my eyes all around, and 

 never have I seen a verdure more 

 fi'esh or abundant, or of wider ex- 

 tent. This green carpeting mingled 

 in thi; horizon in the azure of the 

 skies. The simple verdure served as 

 a sort of ornamental offset to the 

 towns contained in it. Numerous 

 country seats decorated the simplic- 

 ity of the fields. Hence I am not 

 surprised that, of all the inhabitants 

 of Korasan and Maweralnahr, none 

 attain a more advanced age than 

 those of Bucharia.' " — Malte-Brun's 

 Vniv. Geography, i, 470. 



112. We need not go out of our own country to witness equal 

 examples of irreparable injuries done by improvident clearings — 

 perhaps on a smaller scale, but not less disastrous in result. In the 

 older settled portions of New England, in the Middle States, and 

 in the South, there are arid liills and worn-out iields, no longer 

 worth any thing for cultivation or pasturage, and that offer, as 

 the only chance of restoration to a useful purpose, the possibility of 

 growing trees. 



113. The abundance of cliff-dwellings and other ruins, in western 

 Colorado and New Mexico, appears to show that that region was 

 once capable of sustaining a larger population than would be now 

 possible from existing means of cultivation. It is of course not 

 known as to what has caused this difference, but the destruction of 

 forests appears to afford the most probable reason. 



114. Mr. B. H. Baden-Powell, in a report on the Administration 

 of the Forest Department of India (1877, vol. i, p. 51), in speak- 



