The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1877-09-13

How Nations are Punished who De.
nude the Earth Of Trees.
"As fellow-U Unitarian, l feel sorry for
the Turks" DR.. 6chliemann wrote from
Salonica; 81 but, as q respectOr of Gods
physical law, l must own they deserve
their fate. Men who for twenty years
have proved themselves tree-destrOyers on
principle, have no right to complain If
the world rises against them" These
sentences are the text of . discourse on the
wickedness of denuding the earth of
forests, which appears in The Popular Sci
ence Monthly for August. This is sub
ject which needs frequent discussion. and
DR.. Schleimann's remark, though in the
nature of nom scquitur, is q timely and
therefore good preface. 1t would be a
very comfortable thing for us to sling all
the burden of redistribution on prin-
ciple'' upon the Turk, in his present
capacity Of scape- goat, and regard it as
culminative evidence of his being the
enemy of the human race. But we have
no call to self-complacency in this matter,
for we are pursuing in our new country
the very same course in regard to trees
which they have pursued in their historic
regions. and are beginning to witness in
some degree the same results. What be-
came of the Garden of Eden is plain
enough. It dried up. The Garden of
Eden was ruined by the wo0dmans ak.
In that happy spot the fruits grew and
gave without labor, because the rivers
watered them, and the rivers flowed be-
cause the trees shaded their fountains.
After man fell the trees fell; and SO did
the river, until all the Edenic beauty
changed and faded. All Paradise tradi-
lions agree on the latitude of the locality,
though they differ as to its longitude.
The belt of the old 'world is just south of
the regions where snow may fall, but can
not remain, passing through Thibet, Cash.
mere, Asia Minor, and reaches Europe
near the center of the Mediterranean-a
line which, continued westward, would
include strip of Southern Europe and
Northern Africa, the latter Of which, save
for the basin of the Nile, is already an
arid desert, and the former is growing
less and less capable of supporting man.
The writer of the article we have re-
ferred to tells us that Southern Spain
maintains about One-tenth its former pop
ulation Greece, about one. twentieth; that
Tripoli, which as late as A. D. 67O had q
population of 5000, 900, of which about
three. fourths of per cent. arc left, and
the climate IF this country, which was
very much that of the Southern Ale
ghenies. is now 80 intolerable that pass
ing steamers have to produce artificial
showers to keep their deck hands from
fainting in the furnace heat that breathes
from the barren Tr:poN hills. Champo.
lion discovered that in the very center of
the Sahara were traces of rivers and
creeks and tree stumps buried beneath
six feet of burning sand, and cried out:
" Is there any crime against nature which
draws down o more terrible curse than
that of stripping our mother earth of her
sylvan covering? The hand of man has
produced this desert, and verify believe
every other desert on the surface of this
EARTH" Of the forests Of Italy and Spain,
in the days of Pliny the elder, just before
the Christian era, about two acres in 100
are left; of those of Greece, scarcely one !;
but these countries are heavily wooded
Ottoman Empire, from which every stick
ible mountains. To this alone is due the
desolation of places once the seat of the
Empire.
The writer we are following has the
fanciful notion that this wantOn spolia-
ton of the earth has been partially due to
the religious beliefs of these regions, the
meddlesome Providence that ruled the
world in spite of man." But that we,
living under the light of science, which
Hmm thoc0 r,pSv
of the past, do not improve on these, but
repeat inditferently the same blunders,
seems unaccountable. We have even ex-
ceeded the older lands in our destruction.
The States of Ohio and Indiana. and
the southern parts of Kentucky and Mich
igan have q greater proportion of treeless
area than Austria and the North German
Empire. "The blue grass region OF Ken
lucky, once the pride of the West, has
now districts of such barren, arid nature
that their stock farmers are moving
toward the Cumberland Mountains .
Much of the slaughter of forests this
writer lays to tobacco and cotton; and
hence the visits of the locust, that omi-
nous pioneer of the desert. These things
are Nature teaching by example what
comes of the neglect, the defiance of hel
laws.
We have often urged the arguments fol-
conservation of forests, and the need Of
both State and local action on the subject
The evils of treeless lands are not with.
out remedy. Trees may be planted. BY
setting out olives and date palms, the ara
BILE area of upper Egypt has increased
hundreds of square miles, and the rainfall
has almost doubled work which alone
deserves to immortalize the Khedive. Sta
tons have been created in the Sahara fol
caravans, by means of artesian wells and
planted groves of palms around them.
We have not yet to combat these extreme
evils by the slow process of restoration,
but in our own hands we have the power
of preserving and providing for the con.
slant renewal of our forests. In Massa-
chusetts many of our streams have been
greatly diminished by the cutting away Of
timber around their sources, and many Of
our mountain lakes have suffered in the
same way. Statutes should protect these
waters by keeping the hills clad for Ger.
tain percentage Of area. The tree-plant
ing and village Improvement associations
which have been so auspiciOusly begun In
New England, and especially in our neal
neighborhood, have a good work to do;
and, moreover, every farmer ought to be
labored with and converted, 10 his own In.
terest, in the saving, AZ we'll as using, of his
woodland rsnUseld { Mass. } Republican
Discoveries at Pompell.
A RECENT visit to Pompeii, after a long
interval, enables me to give you new and
interesting details of that remarkable
locality. About two-f ifths of the city have
already been disinterred, and the excava.
lions are now being carried on by an aver.
age number of 100 men, toward the east