File:American forestry (1910-1923) (18119693356).jpg

Title: American forestry
Identifier: americanforestry221916amer (find matches)
Year: 1910-1923 (1910s)
Authors: American Forestry Association
Subjects: Forests and forestry
Publisher: Washington, D. C. : American Forestry Association
Contributing Library: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden
Digitizing Sponsor: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden

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Deserts Due to Deforestation By Move Wicks Member of the Seieiitifie Society, San Antonio, Texas THJi history of civilization has been a record of increasing deserts. Trees have disappeared be- fore the advance of man Hke the bultalo. It is axiomatic with scientists that no country was originally a desert. All deserts have been man-made. The tree growth in Eastern and Central Asia and Northern Africa, the birth-places of the human family, soon fell before teeming populations. Those countries were already in process of becoming deserts before systematic agriculture was known in Europe. When Zenobia was overthrown by the Romans under Aurelian, Palmyra, her capital, was the metropolis of a mighty empire. Now the shifting sands of Sahara almost hide the ruins of that stupendous city of marble and gold. As late as the rise of Mohammedanism, in the seventh century of the Christian Era, the country of Tripoli, on the north African coast, had a pHDpulation of 6,000,000 souls. It was then clothed with vineyards, orchards and forests. It is now bare of vegetation, the streams dried up and the population reduced to 45,000 people. The heat is so intense that the little labor done there is post- poned until after the setting of the sun. All this is due to reckless ravages upon tree growth. The hatred of a Turk for a tree is proverbial. Wherever the crescent of ^Mohammed achieved victory the Moslems destroyed the trees with nearly as much zeal as they have displayed in slaying those denying the inspiration of the '■ Camel Driver of Mecca." Champollion, the famous Egyptologist, says of the Sahara desert of Northern Africa : " And so the astonish- ing fact dawns upon us that this desert was once a region of groves and fountains and the abode of happy millions. Does any crime against nature draw down a more dreadful curse than that of stripping Mother Earth of her sylvan covering? The hand of man has produced this desert, and, as I verily believe, every desert on the face of the earth." In similar vein, Baron Alexander Von Humboldt says: " Man by his own recklessness brings upon himself a scarcity of wood and, resultingly, a lack of water." The famous Dr. Schleiman writes from Salonica: " As a fellow Unitarian, I feel sorry for the Turks, but as a respector of God's physical laws, I must own that they deserve their fate. Alen who for twenty generations have shown themselves tree-destroyers on principle, have no right to complain if the world rises against them." The student of natural science adopts these words of the distinguished explorer of the ruins of Troy, albeit
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NO TREES TO Li — -,;j )ilI';l This, at one time, well-forested section of Algeria, one hundred miles south of Algiers, is now a desert. Sudden rains fall and swell the mountain water-courses into temporary torrents, which almost as quickly subside. The herd of camels is being driven south after bringing up dates from the desert of Sahara. 598

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