INTRODUCTION. 



As a preface, perhaps I cannot do better than ask the reader to peruse, I need not 

 ask him to admire, ths following bsautiful piece, from " Nature, or the Poetry of 

 Earth and Sea," by Madame Michelet : — 



"Alas, in how many places is the forest, which once lent us its shade, nothing more 

 than a memory. The grave and noble circle, which so befittingly adorned the mountain, 

 is every day contracting. Where you came in the hope of seeking life, you find but the 

 image of death. 



" Oh, who will really undertake the defence of the trees, and rescue them from a 

 general and senseless destraction"! Who will eloquently set forth their manifold mission, 

 and their active and incessant assistance in the regulation of the laws which rule our 

 globe ? Without them, it seems delivered over to the blind destiny which will involve it 

 again in chaos ! The motivj pDwers and purificators of the atmosphere through the 

 respiration of their foliage ; avaricious collectors, to the advantage of future ages, of the 

 solar heat, it is they, too, which arrest the progress of the sea-born clouds, and compel 

 them to refresh the earth ; it is they which pacify the storm, and avert its most disastrous 

 consequences. In the low-lying plains, which had no outlet for their waters, the trees, 

 long before the advent of man, drained the soil by their roots,' forcing the stagnant waters 

 to descend, and coAstruct at a lower depth their useful reservoirs. And now, on the 

 abrupt declivities they consolidate the crumbling soil, check and break in the torrent, 

 control the melting of the snows, and preserve to the meadows the fertile humidity which 

 in due time will overspread them with a sea of flowers. 



" And is not this enough 1 To watch over the life of the plant and its general har- 

 mony, is it not to watch over the safety of humanity 1 The tree, again, was created for 

 the nurture of man, to assist him in his industries and his arts. But on this immense 

 subject I cannot dwell. Only, it is our very emancipation. It is owing to the tree, to 

 its soul earth-buried for so many centuries, and now restored to light, that we have se- 

 cured the wings of the steam engine. 



" Thank Heaven for the trees ! In this book, and with my feeble voice, I claim for 

 them the gratitude of man. Let other writers of greater authority come to their assist- 

 ance, and restore them to the earth, before she is utterly stripped, before she becomes an 

 arid and uninhabitable desert. 



" One day, as seated before a forest of firs already marked for the axe, I was lost in 

 a sad and silent dream. Another dreamer, who could well interpret my thoughts, told 

 me that he came from the Engadine, the most elevated and the coldest region of Switzer- 

 land, where the fir ceases to' grow, where the larch can barely live, but where the arolla 

 prospers, and hardily plants its roots on the edges of the glacier. It is a hero ! I ex- 

 claimed ; we are in Switzerland, and should we not see it ? ' ' You must make all possible 

 haste,' replied the stranger. ' In the war which man has declared against the Tree, the 

 last of the aroUas will soon have disappeared.' " 



