59 



acquired a frequency unknown before. It cannot be disputed that the terrible destruc- 

 tive effects of the inundations of the Loire -and the Vistula of late years must be in great 

 part attributed to the excessive denudation of the forests. 



"A mountain cliff, a wall, or a forest are the natural protections against the wind. 

 In this respect the forest cannot be without beneficial effect on the adjacent country ; the 

 young growth of trees flourishes, screened from the force of the wind, the arable land 

 develops itself better, the shifting sands meet an impassible barrier, and the noxious 

 influence of the dry winds is turned aside. 



" It is, then, indisputable that the forests exercise a salutary influence on the tem- 

 perature of a coimtry. The sanitary condition of man and of domestic animals, as well 

 as the growth of cultivated plants, immediately depends on the climate of the locality. 

 Epidemics, unknown before, may perhaps be attributed to a climatic change brought about 

 by the«destruction of forests. 



" The fertility of a country depends on its supply of forest land, for on this depend 

 the foundation of soil, the precipitation of dew, and fall of rain, the steady current of 

 rivers, the mitigation of the evil influences of unhealthy winds, and the growth of vege- 

 tation in the fields and meadows. The great fertility of certain tropical regions, as we 

 have shown with respect to Madeira and the Canaries, is in great part due to the exten- 

 sion of forest land. 



" Cultivated plains and forests are by no means so opposed to each other as that they 

 cannot exist together. The kind of land where one flourishes is by no means always 

 suitable to the other. For example, at a certain altitude of mountains of a rocky nature, 

 cultivation cannot well be carried on, while yet the ground is well suited to forests. Much 

 elevated ground, now covered with crops which scarcely pay for the labour expended in 

 producing them, was formerly wooded. The bed of soil produced by the shade and debris 

 of forests has disappeared with them ; each new fall of rain has carried away some of its 

 soluble constituents, in each a new loss to the soil which, thus impoverished, becomes at 

 last sterile. 



" We are far from asserting that we can do without arable lands any more than 

 forests, it is clearly right to cut down woods when in need of land for culture. But the- 

 destruction of forests ought never to exceed its necessary limits, never should some tem- 

 porary need decide on the fall of a forest, nor should this ever be allowed when wheat is 

 incapable of growing ; and wherever a forest is felled, we should always replace it with 

 a new plantation of trees. The prairies, fields of wheat and of other grain, like all vege- 

 tables, do exercise an influence both on the soil and in the atmosphere. Nay, more, 

 these would yet further improve the soil, if the harvest and the rotation of crops did not 

 each year remove their supply of organic and mineral nutriment. With these the fields 

 ought to be manured, as the forests are each year, by the fallen leaves. The action of 

 arable fields and meadows on the atmosphere is the same as that of forests, but within 

 much weaker limits, and with a gentler surface of exhalation and absorption. Fields and 

 arable lands cannot supply the place of forests, they cannot retain in as complete a man- 

 ner the moisture in the soil, or impress in the atmosphere so active a circulation. The 

 proportion between arable lands and forests ought to be based on the special conditions of 

 the soil and climate of a country. This question is one of the most difficult, as it is one 

 of the most interesting problems of political economy, and on its solution depends, to no 

 slight degree, the development and well-being of nations. 



" Since Julius Csesar and the other Roman historians, Germany has been covered by 

 vast forests. It was the same in Spain according to Diodorous Siculus, in Greece accord- 

 ing to Herodotus and Thucydides. Under the Roman Empire the forests were' banished 

 to the mountains, and were in fact reduced to the condition of plantations. Green oaks 

 and cork trees abounded as did pine along the Guadalquiver. 



" How to reconstruct the forests : — By culture and care, by well-chosen replanting, 

 by the plantation of new woods. One should never cut down woods excepting when 

 there is need of lumber, or when beneficial to the forests themselves. Trees which have 

 not yet attained the full growth of their development should never be cut down but from 

 absolute necessity. The plantations of old trees should be sacrificed ; their development 

 is at an end, and tlje soil will profit more by a new plantation. When woods are cut 



