FORESTRY COMMISSION. Ill 



least 00 per cent," and in a sweeping review of the cause, lie adds: 

 "Afghanistan, I'eisia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Asia Minor, (ireece, Mace- 

 donia, the southern islands of the Mediterranean, and the whole of 

 northern Africa, from Cairo to the western extremity of Morocco — 

 countries which were once blessed with abundance and a glorious cli- 

 mate — are now either absolute sand wastes or the abodes of perennial 

 droughts, hunger and wretchedness; and wherever statistical records 

 have been preserved, it is proved, beyond the possibility of a doubt, 

 that their misfortune commenced with the disappearance of their ar- 

 boreal vegetation." 



The author of "(Jonflict in Xature and Life" asserts : "Forests obstruct 

 the winds and protect man, animal and plant. They prevent evapora- 

 tion, absorb the rains, and thus feed perennial springs and maintain 

 the constancy of the streams below. The forests gone, the floods which 

 follow damage the labors of man, and the dearth of water which follows 

 is often with diiHculty made adequate to the supply of civilized needs. 

 Driving winds, now unobstructed, blast the winter vegetation, while 

 frosts strike with more force, and it becomes more difflcult to grow the 

 fruits and grains as the country becomes cleared. The A^ery means 

 which man xises to obtain greater production from the earth brings 

 him trouble and renders production more precarious." 



Prof. Charles Burton Gulick, in a book recently published on "Life 

 of the Ancient Greeks," in comparing the rich past with the impover- 

 ished present of Greece, has this to say: "\s early as the fourth cen- 

 tury, Attica was becoming a waste, because the state and the people 

 failed to realize the importance of preserving the once rich woodlands 

 of Parnes, Pentelicus and Hymettus. The trees were cut down waste- 

 fully by lumbermen, who found their profit in the great demand for 

 timber for house and shipbuilding, furniture and fuel. Perhaps most 

 harm ^^as done to the forests by shepherds and goatherds, who deliber- 

 ately burned down trees in order to g'ain more pasture land." 



Commenting upon this, the Portland Oregonian remarks: "Here is 

 competent testimony as to the effect of forest spoliation upon Greece, a 

 record of actual experience, not of speculative reasoning. Possibly 

 Greece's glory would not all be in the dim past if her forests had been 

 preserved. Her maritime power might not have vanished, her soil might 

 not have become so lean and stony, her climate would certainly have been 

 modified, the spirit of her people might have been perpetuated by an 

 environment which brought it to so great a degree of refinement and 

 strength. No good results of the destruction of Attica's mountain for- 

 ests can he cited. The evil effects were many and obvious. May we not 

 learn something from this history?" 



While in most cases of desolation caused by the destruction of forests 

 there is no record left of the slow but sure progress of the ruin, which 

 has changed once fertile and populous arable areas to barren and de- 

 populated wastes, there is abundant opportunity to study and know 

 what has occurred within the last hundred years under the eyes of com- 

 petent observers. Statistical returns show the gradual destruction of 

 arable lands and the consequent depopulation of entire provinces in 

 southeastern France from the cutting away of the forests. It did not 

 require many years to deprive thousands of their homes and send them 



