112 STATE OP MICHIGAN. 



elsewhere to find means of subsistence. It was stern necessity that in 

 ten years, from 1812 to 1852, caused the department of the Lower Alps 

 to lose 61,000 acres of arable land, which, Mr. Marsh, above quoted, tells 

 us "had been washed away or rendered worthless by abuses of pastur- 

 age. In five years, from 1851 to 1856, the several departments of the 

 French Alps lost 103,000 inhabitants." Then the French government 

 took hold of the matter of re-forestation in earnest. The hills and 

 sources of the streams were rewooded, the old area of arable land was 

 restored, and so was the population. 



Spain is a standing testimony to the immeasurable value of forests 

 and the calamity which attends their loss. Writing of its changed con- 

 ditions, Emil Eothe says : "Under the reign of the Moorish Caliphs, the 

 Iberian peninsula resembled a vast garden, yielding grain and fruit of 

 every known variety in the most perfect quality and in endless abun- 

 dance, and was thickly populated by a highly cultivated people. But 

 the Sierras and mountain slopes were covered with a luxuriant growth 

 of timber, which was afterwards wantonly destroyed. * * * Now 

 nearly all the tablelands of Spain, being fully one-third of its whole 

 area, are desolate and unfit for agriculture because of the scarcity of 

 rain and the want of water. * * * The average depth of the five 

 rivers that cross Spain in all directions has greatly diminished." 



Eussia, too, furnishes a striking example of the ruin caused by de- 

 forestation. The large rivers, once bordered by immense forests, are 

 growing smaller, choking up with wind-wafted sands, and some are al- 

 ready dry, even the springs having ceased to flow. Harvests are more 

 frequent failures, and the famine of 1891 was severest in the districts 

 where the destruction of forests has been the completest. 



Every nation in Europe, once possessed of large forest areas, has 

 learned the disastrous results of forest destruction in the costly school 

 of experience. The most fertile parts of France and Italy were well- 

 nigh ruined by the destruction of their forests. The drifting sand dunes 

 on the Baltic coast threatened Germany with an inundation. Switzer- 

 land was rapidly being torn by avalanches. Portions of Austria-Hun- 

 gary bordering the sea were denuded of all soil, because deprived of 

 forest protection, only the bleak and glistening rocks being left. 



Gradually, however, the foremost European nations began to realize 

 the fact that their own ignorance and misconduct was the cause of their 

 deteriorating condition, and they commenced to arrest the downward 

 tendency by restoring their forests. Forestral influences became the 

 siibject of profound investigation. Laws for the protection of forests 

 were enacted and were enforced. In France, since 1860, more than 

 130,000,000 has been expended in reforesting portions of the country 

 where, after having been stripped of the woods, the loss of arable land 

 and of population became serious. 



Can we expect to escape like consequences when our forests on hill- 

 sides and at the headwaters of our rivers and their tributaries are de- 

 stroyed? Considerable of the soil of Michigan is a sandy loam, the 

 average annual rainfall is less than thirty-flve inches, and droughts that 

 shorten the yield of crops are liable to occur, for the soil dries out 

 qtiickly in summer and is liable to be wind-blown in winter where un- 

 sheltered by forests. Eeferring to Ohio, and what is said is equally ap- 



