CHAPTER II. 
EVILS ATTENDING THE DESTRUCTION OF THE 
FORESTS. 
G. P. Marsh, in his great work, entitled “Man and 
Nature,” says: “There is good reason to believe that 
the surface of the habitable earth, in all the climates 
and regions which have been the abodes of dense and 
civilized populations, was, with few exceptions, already 
covered with a forest growth when it first became the 
home of man.” Countries entirely covered with for- 
ests are fit only for the abode of savage races. As 
improvement advances the woods are partially felled, 
and the land fitted for the regidence of a civilized 
people. But the arrangements of Nature cannot be 
entirely reversed with impunity. Either extreme 
produces the like effect—the total destruction of the 
forest unfits a country for the occupancy of any but 
a savage, or at best a nomadic population. The pre- 
sent condition of some of the countries around the 
Mediterranean Sea, once among the most productive 
in the world, and sustaining immense population, is 
