152 
RETARDATION OF SPRING. 
The local retardation of spring so mncli complained of in 
Italy, France, and Switzerland, and the increased frequency of 
late frosts at that season, appear to be ascribable to the admis¬ 
sion of cold blasts to the surface, by the felling of the forests 
which formerly both screened it as by a wall, and communi¬ 
cated the warmth of their soil to the air and earth to the 
leeward. Caimi states that since the cutting down of the 
woods of the Apennines, the cold winds destroy or stunt the 
vegetation, and that, in consequence of u the usurpation of 
winter on the domain of spring,” the district of Mugello has 
lost all its mulberries, except the few which find in the lee of 
buildings a protection like that once furnished by the forest.* 
u It is proved,” says Clave, “ Etudes,” p. 44, that the de¬ 
partment of Ardeche, which now contains not a single consid¬ 
erable wood, has experienced within thirty years a climatic 
disturbance, of which the late frosts, formerly unknown in the 
country, are one of the most melancholy effects. Similar 
results have been observed in the plain of Alsace, in conse¬ 
quence of the denudation of several of the crests of the 
Yosges.” 
such a devastation of the woods, and consequently such an increased 
severity of climate, that maize no longer ripened. An association, formed 
for the purpose, effected the restoration of the forest, and maize flourishes 
again in the fields of Piazzatorre.”—Report by G. Rosa, in II Politecnico , 
Dicembre, 1861, p. 614. 
Similar ameliorations have been produced by plantations in Belgium. 
In an interesting series of articles by Baude, entitled “ Les Cotes de la 
Manche,” in the Revue des Deux Mondes , I find this statement: “ A spec¬ 
tator placed on the famous bell tower of the cathedral of Antwerp, saw, 
not long since, on the opposite side of the Schelde only a vast desert plain; 
now he sees a forest, the limits of which are confounded with the horizon. 
Let him enter within its shade. The supposed forest is but a system of 
regular rows of trees, the oldest of which is not forty years of age. These 
plantations have ameliorated the climate which had doomed to sterility the 
soil where they are planted. While the tempest is violently agitating their 
tops, the air a little below is still, and sands far more barren than the 
plateau of La Ilague have been transformed, under their protection, into 
fertile fields.”— Revue des Deux Mondes , January, 1859, p. 277. 
* Cenni sulla Importanza e Coltura dei Boschi , p. 81. 
