The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1900-10-11
HEALTH FROM sHADE-rREEs.

That shade is more healthful than
sunshine, provided the shade is caused
by trees, is maintained in Health Cul-
ture by DIR. Felix L. Oswald. DIR. Os-
valid calls attention at the outset to
what he considers the strange fact that
not one of the religions of the world
gives a word of warning against the
folly of forest destruction, although
the ak has turned 100000 square miles
of once fertile regions into deserts, and
has made one-third of the Eastern
continent an unfit abode of the human
species. Says DIR. Oswald:
''Spain, in the glory of her ancient
woodlands, was the Eden of Southern
Europe; treeless Spain has become a
gehenna of poverty and disease. For
est-shaded Sicily begat athletes and
philosophers, heroes and merchant
princes; Sicily in it's present sun blister
ed condition evolves chiefly bandits,
beggars and vermin. The entire coast
region of the Mediterranean has been
cleared with the result of losing four
fifths of it's former population and at
least nine-tenths of its former pro-
ductiveness.
''The same in Southern France in
Portugal, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia,
Armenia, Persia, and Hindustan.
cit might indeed be questioned if all
human follies and crimes taken together
have caused as much permanent mis-
chief as the insane destruction of ma
lures safeguards against life blighting
droughts. A land without trees is in
as sad plight as tiayed animal. The
New Worlds wealth of woodlands is
the chief guarantee of it's prosperity.
Forests of shady leaf-trees mitigate
climatic extremes, and there is not the
slightest doubt that they attract rain
showers. A few hundred square miles
of wooded dells in the valley of the
Rio de San Pedro, Peru, enjoy an an
nual average of twenty inches of rain,
while in the adjoining desert of Alta
CANA droughts have been known to
continue for six years. Ibrahim Pasha's
tree plantations in upper Egypt in
creased the yearly rainfall from nine to
fifteen inches. In Italy it has decreas-
ed one-half; in some districts of North
ern Africa (the ancient Numidia, for
instance at least four-tifths. Forests
shelter misunderstanding birds and pre-
vent the destructive effects of inJlnda-
lions by absorbing rain showers that
would pour down from treeless slopes
as from slate roof.
Even from a purely sanitary point Of
view, Dr. Oswald goes on to say, shade
trees justify all the claims of their
friends Leaves generate oxygen and
absorb noXious gases. In towns like
Savannah, Ga, with its fourfold rows
of stately forest trees shading every
principal street, sunstrokes are far less
frequent than in the sun-scorched
Though more elevated settlements of
the prairie States.
Shade-trees, too, prevent ophthalmia.
Says the writer:
81 am still haunted by the recollec-
ton of scene in the harbor suburb of
Girgenti, where children with red,
swollen eyelids We're foraging in dump
pile and wrangling for bones with
number of equally blear-eyed dogs.
There was not tree in sight. Far up
and down the llndulating beach the
heat of the sun made the air tremble,
and the glare of its reflection from the
refuse of old salt pans was almost as
affective as the glitter of a snoW-field.
Yet Oh that same spot Agrigentum,
with it's population of keen-eyed
Greeks hourished for three hundred
years, a city of gardens and groves,
rivaling the wealth of Carthage, the
mistress of the Mediterranean
DR.. Oswald would also hold forest
destruction responsible for malaria, i'll
many of its forms, owing to the dilu
vium carried down by the mountain
torrents to form pestilential marshes.
He asserts that among the sanitary
equipments of a model dwelling house
shade-trees should rank with the best
plumbers contriyances, and that a
house in grove is worth twice the
rent of a house on a naked hillside. III
conclusion Dr. Oswald refers to the
crusade against shade-trees once under
taken by Dr. bio Lewis, and says:
In his zeal for the propaganda of
the sunshine gospel he caused the de-
structiOn OF trees enough to supply
tirst-class sawmill for a number of
years. His objection was founded on
the belief that sunshine is a microbe
killer, natures chief specific for the
cure of germ diseases; but in sparsely
woode dHindustan, sun rays have not
prevented the spread of frightful cpl
denies. They..do not check the develop.
ment of malaria germs in the fens OF
the Adriatic, nor of the typhoid germs
in the slums of our southern seaport
towns.
Nor would it be easy on that theory
to explain the longevity of our back
woodsmen or of the German foresters
government forest wardens) who vie
in surrounding their cottages with
over-arching leafy trees. Not a sun
ray reaches the Foersterhaus from May
to November; but in winter, when sun
shine is really a blessing, the screen
Onopc ar holds itS own inst anOnUh TO