12 ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



resources of the third order, capable in most in- 

 stances of reproduction or restoration under human 

 care, after having been deteriorated by uneconomic 

 exploitation or by change of contingent conditions, 

 as when brooks and rivers are lessened in volume 

 or else filled with flood-waters and debris, in con- 

 sequence of forest destruction. 



The extensive and absolute destruction of forest 

 cover in Western Asia and portions of Eastern 

 and Southern Europe has desolated vast regions 

 and transformed them into lifeless deserts. Such 

 rapine has steriUzed almost beyond recovery the 

 once highly productive regions of Sicily and Al- 

 geria ; and in our own country we can point to 

 similar results already apparent, as in Wisconsin, 

 where over 4,000,000 acres have practically been 

 turned into deserts,^ in Mississippi,^ and other por- 

 tions of our domain, where erosion carries the fer- 

 tile soil into rivers, occasioning, in addition to its 

 loss, disturbance of favorable water stages and 

 expenditures in river and harbor bills. 



Even climatic conditions, — a resource which we 

 have hardly yet appreciated as such, — it seems, can 

 be changed by mismanagement beyond recovery, 

 as exemplified by the experience of France, where, 

 it is asserted, the cultivation of the olive has be- 



1 See " Forestry Conditions and Interests of Wisconsin," Bulletin 

 No. 16, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Division of Forestry, 1898. 



2 See J W McGee, quoted in " Forest Influences," Bulletin No. 

 7, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Division of Forestry, 1894. 



