CLIMATIC CHANGES IN THE PRAIRIE REGION. 293 



wildernesses through the agency of man ; devastated by his own folly or his 

 ignorance of nature's rigorous laws. 



It is also unquestionably true, that a restoration, by the agency of man, to 

 those regions their previous physical condition by the cultivation of forests, would 

 re-establish their once boasted fertility. 



The inquiry then is, if the destruction of forests would bring about the 

 meteorological effects in certain districts — as will presently be shown — and their 

 restoration reinstate the primitive conditions, whether a region primarily destitute 

 of trees in consequence of climatic causes, with a soil as inherently fertile as any 

 where on earth, but by deficiency of aqueous precipitation insusceptible to a fully 

 developed system of agriculture, can be made by the artificial creation of forests 

 to reach a state that will meet the complete requirements of our progressive 

 civilization, agriculturally considered ? 



Reference will now be made to the most authentic statistics on the subject of 

 the effect of disrobing a country of forests, after which will be shown what prog- 

 ress has been made in the cultivation of timber on the Great Plains, the 

 possibilities in that direction, and how trees affect climate. 



Mr. George P. Marsh, in his grand work* showing man's power over nature, 

 and the influence he has exerted on the physical condition of the earth, says : 



"If we compare the present physical condition of the countries [around the 

 borders of the Mediterranean] with the description that ancient geographers and 

 historians have given of their fertility and general capability of ministering to 

 human uses, we shall find that more than half of their whole extent * * is 

 either deserted by civilized men and surrendered to hopeless desolation, or at least 

 greatly reduced both in productiveness and population. Vast forests have disap- 

 peared from mountain spurs and ridges; the vegetable earth, accumulated beneath 

 the trees by the decay of leaves and fallen trunks, the soil of Alpine pastures 

 which skirted and indented the woods, and the mould of the upland fields, are 

 washed away ; meadows once fertilized by irrigation are waste and unproductive 

 because the cisterns and reservoirs that supplied the ancient canals are broken, or 

 the springs that fed them dried up ; rivers famous in history and in song have 

 shrunk to humble brooklets; the willows that ornamented and protected the banks 

 of the lesser water-courses are gone, and the rivers have ceased to exist as 

 perennial currents, because the little water that finds its way into their old chan- 

 nels is evaporated by the droughts of summer, or absorbed by the parched earth 

 before it reaches the lowlands ; the beds of the brooks have widened into broad 

 expanses of pebbles and gravel, over which, though in the hot season passed 

 dryshod, in winter sea-like torrents thunder ; the entrances of navigable streams 

 are obstructed by sand-bars ; and harbors, once marts of an extensive commerce, 

 are shoaled by the deposits of the rivers at whose mouths they lie." 



Spain was once famed for its fertility. In those days the forest covered im- 

 mense areas ; the hills and the valleys were dotted with emerald tinted groves, 



*Man and Nature. 



