Why do forests 
need protection? 
108 
THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD 
down to the ground. Cut it every time it 
starts, and at last it will be too weak to try again 
because it will have used up all its stored-up 
food without being able to make any new. 
We could do a great deal toward freeing the 
country of troublesome weeds if everyone would 
do these two things: cut all weeds before they 
go to seed, and cut all young shoots before they 
can make food. 
When the first settlers came to America, they 
found the new country covered with forests and 
prairies. For hundreds of years no one had 
disturbed the plants which grew here and they 
had been progressing in the natural way. In 
the natural way the prairies come first. Grasses 
and flowering herbs like daisies grow in the 
prairies. After many years the soil becomes 
much richer, because the leaves from these 
plants have dropped every year and decayed. 
The decayed leaf mold, or humus, as it is called, 
makes a rich soil that is suited to trees. Also it 
holds water better than the light soil of the 
original prairie. Gradually trees begin to grow 
