Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1877-08-31
The Protection Of Forests.

In the Popular Science Monthly for Au-
gust, DR.. F. L. Oswald says timely word
for the protection of forests in the United
States. He deals with the climate influence
of vegetation, and speaks OF the steady
growth of desert which makes its first APP
pearance on the dry table-land of Southern
Syria, spread eastward down the Euphiates
toward Afghanistan, and westward along
both shores OF the Mediterranean, and now
encroaches on Southern France and the
southeastern provinces of European Rus
STA. Like a virulent cancer, the azoic
sand-drifts OF the Moab Desart have eaten
their way into Southern Europe and North.
ern Africa, and dried up the life-springs of
districts which, beyond all dispute, were
once the garden regions of this earth"
The wasteful cutting down of trees and
neglect of planting new vegetation strip
country of its natural rain-precipitators and
natural water-reservoirs. Districts that
have lost their forest gradually lose their
husbandmen, for agriculture becomes i'm
possible with the drying of springs and
rivers. In Egypt, on the other hand,
double amount of rainfall has been Sc
cured by the planting of trees under the
supervision of a European officer of the
Khedive. DR.. Oswald quotes the following
sentence from Schliemann, writing from
Salonica GAS q fellow Unitarian, / feel
sorry for the Turks; but, as a respector of
Gods physical laws 1 must own that they
deserve their fate. Men who for 20 genera
tons have proved themselves tree destroy
ers on principle have no right to complain
IL the world rises against them" But he
objects to the Turk being left 10 bear the
blame alone, and insinuates that the Jewish
and Christian, as well as the Mohammedan,
religions have taught men 10 regard the
life beyond as so all-engrosslng that the
well-being of future men on earth is OF lit
tie importance, and have encouraged ma
tional suicide by denuding countries of
their woods. Palestine is the example of
Jewish folly, and Spain OF Christian. The
valley of the Guadalquivir in the fourteenth
century supported population of 100000
Of healthy and happy men; now there are
million and quarter of sickly inhabit-
ants in bare and sandy region. Tripoli
in the seventh century had population of
100000. Its warm but at that time equa-
BILE climate is now one OF the hottest known,
and its inhabitants number less than &C, 900.
In regard 10 the United States, it appears
that the clearing of land, which had at first
good effect in drying the climate and stop
ping miasmatic influences, has gone too
far, at least in some of The Southern and
Central States.
1.-THE States of Ohio and Indiana, and the
southern parts of Kentucky and Michigan,
so recently part of The great East .Ameri-
can forest, have even now greater percent
age OF troeless area than Austria and the
North German Empire, that have been set
tied and cultivated for upward of 1000
years. The northern borders of Ohio are
kept comparatively fertile by the neighbor-
hood of the great lakes, but the central re-
gions, and many of The river counties, be-
gin to suffer from drought, and see their
springs fail in every summer. The "Blue-
Grass" region of Kentucky, once the pride
Of the West, has now districts of such bar
rem aud arid nature that their stock farmers
are moving toward the Cumberland Noun
lains, because the creeks and old springs
dried up, and their wells became too low to
furnish water for their cattle. Wherever
tobacco and cotton are cultivated the work
Of ruin has made rapid advances, and in all
the southeastern counties of Virginia and
North Carolina, and throughout Mississip.
pi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina
the traveller may ride for hours without see.
ing more than four or five trees in group
droughts are becoming more and more fire..
quent, and the locust, that ominous pioneer
fthe desert. has made its appearance"