people. They have cut down nearly all the trees and for hundreds of
years the brush and grass have been eaten so closely by the sheep and
goats that few roots remain to hold the soil. It does not need to rain
heavily there to cause the rivers to become muddy and swollen. The soil
which once covered the slopes has been carried to the bays, and now
there is land where ships floated two thousand years ago.
[Illustration: _U. S. Forest Service_
Terraces of rock built by natives of China to aid in holding the soil.]
In Spain so much of the best soil has been lost that the people now do
not raise enough food to support themselves, and much has to be imported
from other lands.
France is a rich country still, in spite of the cutting of so much of
the forest and the careless pasturing of the mountain slopes. The people
are industrious and hard working and thus make a living in spite of the
loss which they are suffering.
The Montenegrins are among the bravest people of Europe, but their land
is barren and they enjoy few luxuries. Their country consists largely of
limestone mountains, from which they have been cutting the trees for
hundreds of years. There is but little soil and that is to be found in
the hollows of the rocks. This soil is so precious that every bit, be it
ever so small, is carefully cultivated.
In the mountains of Palestine and Syria the people have so completely
destroyed the trees and grasses which Nature once planted there that it
is difficult for them to raise enough to live upon. The rivers are muddy
after every rain, and even the water from the melting snows picks up
some of the soil and flows away with a dirty, yellow color.
When we reach China and Korea, we find that there the people have been
most severely punished for their carelessness. The mountain sides have
been torn by the rains and deeply gullied. The once smooth slopes upon
which grew trees and grasses are now a mass of sharp ridges and deep
hollows of bare earth. The water falling upon these mountains runs off
in torrents, carrying even large boulders as it does in our Western
deserts. Here and there the natives have built terraces of rock to aid
in holding the soil, but many parts of the country are almost wholly
deserted. The waters run off the mountains so quickly that they often
form vast floods which spread over the lower valleys and plains. The
floods destroy the crops and drown the people.
Eastward of China there is an arm of the Pacific Ocean known as the
Yellow Sea. Why do you suppose this name was given to the sea? One of
the great rivers of China, the Yangste-kiang, empties into it. The river
rises in the barren mountains of which we have just been speaking, and
it is continually bringing so much mud and sand that a whole sea is
being filled. Long before a ship comes within sight of the land the
waters are seen to be of a muddy, yellow color.
In the smaller valleys of Korea the natives build dikes along the rivers
to keep the mountain floods from spreading sand and gravel over their
rice fields. Every year they have to make the dikes higher as the river
beds fill up.
Thus we see that all over the world people are suffering because they
have not obeyed the laws which Nature has made for the protection of the
soil.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE USE AND CARE OF WATER
The ocean is the home of the water. The water would always remain in the
ocean if it could, but the sun and air are continually at work stealing
little particles away and sending them on long journeys.
The water particles are so small as they rise from the ocean that we
cannot see them. By and by they crowd together and make the clouds that
float across the sky. As soon as the clouds meet colder air, the little
water particles rush together and thus become larger and larger until
they grow so heavy that they can no longer float in the air, but must
fall. Some of them fall into the ocean again, but others drop upon the
land.
The raindrops that reach the land have many sorts of stories to tell
before they again get back to the ocean. Some of them are at once
snatched up again and are started upon another journey. The thirsty air,
whether over the ocean or over the land, is ever in search of water
particles.
If the air is very cold, the clouds turn to snow instead of rain. The
feathery flakes fall slowly through the air and form a soft white mantle
over the earth. Those that fall on lofty mountains form great banks
which may not entirely melt and turn to water until late in the summer.
The raindrops that fall where the slopes are steep, where Nature has
grown little vegetation, or where men have destroyed the earth cover,
have little to detain them and are soon on their way back to their home.
In their hasty journey they do much damage to the unprotected soil.
If the drops fall upon gentle slopes, or where there are marshes and
lakes, or upon the forest with its decaying vegetation, or upon deep
beds of gravel and sand, they are a long time getting back to the ocean.
[Illustration: _George J. Young_
The cool and shady stream before men came and cut the trees away so that
the hot sun could get at it.]
We can in no way change the amount of rain that falls upon any part of
the earth. We cannot call up a storm when we wish it, nor can we send it
away when there has been rain enough. But there are many ways in which
we can hasten or delay the return of the water to the ocean. Nature
shows us some of these. The spongelike carpet underneath the forest
holds the water until it has had time to soak into the earth from which
it later emerges as springs. Nature forms basins on the heads of the
rivers where a part of the water, instead of immediately flowing away,
collects in the form of lakes. From these lakes the water runs away
slowly instead of in torrential floods.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The rotting tree trunks take up the rainwater like a sponge.]
Only a few places in our country have more rain than is really needed.
One of these is the region about the mouth of the Mississippi River
upon the Gulf of Mexico. Another is upon the Northwest coast. Throughout
the central part of the country the summer rains are sometimes too light
to afford a full harvest. The rainfall upon the plains and valleys of
the Southwest is so small that the only plants that can live there are
those strange and curious forms that have become used to desert
conditions. The only way in which these lands can be made useful to the
farmer is by means of irrigation. To obtain water for irrigation we have
either to go to the distant mountains and build reservoirs to collect
the rains which fall there and then dig canals to carry the water to the
desert valleys, or to make use of some river flowing through them, if
they are fortunate enough to have such a river. Can you think of any
rivers that are used in this way?
[Illustration: _Brown Brothers_
The great Roosevelt Dam, in the Salt River irrigation project,
Arizona.]
Although water sometimes seems the greatest blessing that we have, yet
it may prove a curse if it is not looked after. If you give the water a
chance to make gullies in your fields, you lose not only the water but
the best of the soil also. If you cultivate your fields with care, most
of the water will soak into the ground. If you are a wise farmer you
know also that cultivation of the soil helps to hold the water, for it
cannot escape through loose soil as it can through compact soil. Thus if
you know how to handle both the water and the soil, you can, with only a
little rain, accomplish a great deal.
[Illustration: Scene below an irrigation reservoir near Richfield,
Idaho, showing a field irrigated by means of canals and ditches.]
We can, then, hold or _conserve_ the water, first, by leaving the
steeper slopes covered with vegetation; second, by keeping the soil
loose; and, third, by building reservoirs to hold the floods. We can
make use of the conserved water by carrying it in pipes or ditches to
those regions where it is needed. We can get rid of too much water by
draining the swamps, and building dikes to protect lowlands from river
floods.
Let us now learn something of the different uses of water. Every one of
our homes has its water supply. In the city the water comes through
pipes from some distant reservoir. In the country the homes are so far
apart that it is difficult to supply them in this way. The water in the
streams is often not suitable for drinking, and if there are no springs
near by it has to be obtained by some other means. Nearly everywhere in
the earth under our feet water can be found by digging or boring a well.
Sometimes we have to go only a few feet, at other times many hundreds of
feet. This water in the earth, or _ground water_, is of very great
importance. It enables us to build our homes where we wish. Spring water
is that which finds its way to the surface through some tiny crack or
fissure in the rocks. How delicious is the pure, cold water that comes
out of the shady hollow in the hills! You can form in your minds a
picture of the rain falling on some distant mountain, of its soaking
into the ground and finally reaching the little crevices in the rocks.
Along these crevices it may have crept for days and perhaps years until
at last it found an outlet in some spring.
The great river flows by so quietly that we often forget in how many
ways it is serving us. It serves not only those upon its banks but those
who live hundreds of miles away and who, perhaps, have never seen it. It
was the first and easiest means of travel used by our forefathers before
there were any roads or railroads through the wilderness. It now aids
in carrying on trade between different regions. If large and deep
enough, it permits boats from all parts of the world to reach the very
heart of our country.
Canals might be called artificial rivers. They serve an important
purpose in nearly level countries where Nature has placed no navigable
river. Although canal boats usually move slowly, yet they can carry
goods cheaper than railroads can. The Erie Canal, in connection with the
Great Lakes and the Hudson River, makes it possible for us to go all the
way by water from the heart of the continent to New York City. The Erie
Canal has helped make New York City the greatest city in our country.
The canal across the Isthmus of Panama saves ships a journey of many
thousand miles around South America.
Rivers serve us in yet another way by affording water for irrigation. A
great river like the Colorado flows through regions of many different
climates. Some rivers become so small in the summer that it is necessary
to build great reservoirs at their headwaters in order to insure a
supply when the crops need it. But in the case of the Colorado this is
not necessary. The headwaters of this river are among lofty mountains,
where the melting snows and summer showers make the waters of the river
higher in the early summer than at any other season of the year. Thus
its great delta, the Colorado Desert, has become the home of many
thousands of people.
Another use which we make of rivers is by putting the water to turning
mill wheels. If you will turn to your geographies, you will find that
nearly all the great manufacturing cities of our country have grown up
around rapids or waterfalls, where some river tumbles over a ledge of
rocks.
Once we had to build our mills close to the rivers to use the water
power, but this is no longer necessary. Now we build electric-power
plants by the rivers and carry electric energy more than a hundred miles
to any place where we wish to use it. Electricity made from the distant
mountain waterfall will do any kind of work for us wherever we carry it.
Thus we see that the river works for us in more than one way. After it
has created power for our factories, it can be turned on to the thirsty
fields, where it will serve us equally well.
[Illustration: _Great Western Power Company of California_
Electric-power plant on north fork of the Feather River, California, for
generating electricity which is carried to distant places.]
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
COULD WE GET ALONG WITHOUT THE TREES?
We have come to depend upon trees to supply so many of our wants that we
could not possibly do without them. We can no more spare the trees than
Nature can. She needs them in her work of protecting the soil on the
steep slopes and of holding back the raindrops that they may keep the
springs alive. She needs them to form nesting places for the birds, and
she needs the dark forest so that the wild creatures may find shelter
and a home.
It would be strange if we did not love the trees; for they are not only
useful, but add so much to the beauty of our homes. Our early ancestors
may at times have made their homes in the trees, as some of the wild
people do now. They certainly lived among the trees, for the myth
stories that they have given us speak of the deep, dark forests and of
the mysterious people supposed to inhabit them.
We feel pity for the people who live in treeless deserts. The few
articles of wood which they possess have to be brought a long distance
at great cost. The Eskimos of the frozen North are more helpless than
the desert people, for before the coming of explorers they had no
communication with forested regions. They were not wholly without wood,
however, for the ocean waves occasionally washed pieces upon their
shores.
From the time when the earliest man found a club a better weapon than
his bare fists, wood has been used for an ever-increasing number of
purposes. Wood fires kept the early people warm. Wood was used in making
their bows and spears; bark and pieces of branches served to make their
rude homes.
The inner bark of the cedar and birch was used by the Indians in weaving
baskets and mats. From the inner bark of the birch tree they made canoes
that were so light that they could be carried from one stream to
another. Where there were no birch trees, great cedars were cut or
burned down and made into canoes, for traveling by water was much easier
than over rocky ground or through dense forests. Some tribes of Indians
learned to split the cedar logs into rude boards which they used in
making their houses. The Indians also learned to boil down the sweet sap
of the maple until it turned to sugar.
The eating of nuts and fruits furnished by certain kinds of trees came
as natural to early men as it does to the other animals. They shared
with the birds the wild fruits, and divided with the squirrels the many
kinds of nuts. So highly do the Italians still value the wild chestnut
that this tree, almost alone of all the forest trees that once covered
their country, has been saved.
The most important uses of trees in our country are for lumber, for
fuel, and for the edible fruits and nuts which they bear. There are
several purposes to which logs are put without being sawed into lumber,
such as for telegraph poles and for piling for the support of great
buildings and for wharves. Long ago nearly all our houses were made of
logs. There was then an abundance of clear, straight trees but very few
sawmills. It was easy to cut the logs, peel and notch them at the ends,
and then lay them up in a house of just the size that was wanted. From
the logs that split easily rough boards and shingles were made, as well
as chairs and tables. Blocks of wood were set in the openings cut for
windows, because of the scarcity of glass.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
A giant sugar pine in a National Forest in the Sierra Nevada
Mountains.]
Our forefathers had all the wood they wanted just for the cutting, and
so they warmed their houses by means of fireplaces large enough to hold
great logs. They made of wood every tool and household convenience for
which this substance could be used. Indeed, they had more wood than they
wanted. Trees covered so much of the land that the ground could not be
cultivated until they had been cut away. Now we wish that we had the
oak, hickory, black walnut, and other kinds of trees, that the pioneers
of our country burned in order to get them out of the way, for they have
become very valuable.
Now, partly because wood is becoming scarce, and partly because our
large buildings must be made very strong and safe from fire, we are
using other materials for them. Stone, brick, and concrete, when tied
together with iron beams, are more suitable material for great
buildings. Our land now contains so many people, and so many new homes
are needed every year, that the lumber required for houses alone is
almost more than we can believe.
The forests are now disappearing so fast that unless we use wood more
carefully we may have to give up our attractive wooden homes and cheery
fireplaces and live in houses of stone or concrete. In many parts of the
world people have so completely destroyed the forests that they have not
only to make their homes of mud bricks or stone, but have little wood
left for fuel and other purposes.
We cannot mention all the purposes to which wood is put in our homes and
in our industries. It would take a whole page in this book merely to
make a list of them. What we ought to remember, however, is that it is
not so much the amount of wood that we actually _use_ as it is the wood
that is _wasted_ that is likely to bring us to want. Two thirds of the
wood of the trees cut throughout our country is wasted in its
manufacture into lumber and other objects. Besides this, as much wood is
burned every year in needless forest fires as is cut by the lumberman.
The waste of trees that are cut merely for their bark which is used in
tanning leather is a wrong for which Nature will sometime call us to
account.
In Switzerland, where the forests are given the care that we bestow upon
a garden, not a particle of wood is allowed to go to waste. The branches
are all picked up and saved. Even the sawdust is made use of in the
manufacture of wood alcohol, which has an important use as fuel.
There are many kinds of trees the sap of which has great value. If care
is used in tapping the trees, they are not greatly injured and will live
for years. Sap of the maple affords delicious maple sugar. The sticky
sap of the coniferous trees is obtained by making a cut in the bark.
Canada balsam, thus obtained, is a clear liquid from a fir tree of the
same name. It is the finest of all the turpentines and is used for many
purposes in the arts. Enormous quantities of turpentine are obtained
from the yellow pines. The pine forests of the Southern states supply
nearly all our turpentine. From this by a process of distillation is
obtained resin and spirits of turpentine.
The rubber tree found in the tropical forests has become one of the most
necessary of trees. Rubber made from the sap of this tree is now used
for many purposes for which we have been able to find no other material.
We sometimes forget how valuable trees are for various substances used
in medicine. Our lives may depend on having such medicines within
reach. Quinine made from the bark of the cinchona tree is perhaps the
most important. Camphor gum is furnished by another tropical tree. The
acacia supplies gum arabic. The poison, strychna, comes from a nut tree.
The eucalyptus, birch, and other trees too numerous to name, supply
various other medicinal products.
[Illustration: _Arthur D. Little, Inc., "The Little Journal"_
When this beautiful long-leaf pine tree is cut we manage to save only
about one third of it. From the wasted two thirds of this and other pine
trees we could obtain many thousand tons of paper, great quantities of
resin, and other products.]
While we are trying to find other substances to replace wood as far as
is possible, so as to keep the forests from being used up, we are
requiring more and more for the manufacture of paper. The spruce forests
are fast disappearing in pulp mills, from which the blocks of wood
emerge as sheets of paper. Perhaps after a time we shall find something
to take the place of wood in the manufacture of paper.
The one use to which we put the trees, which does not destroy or injure
them in the slightest, is growing them for their fruit and nuts. We take
great care of such trees, selecting the best varieties and cultivating,
trimming, and spraying them in order to keep them healthy and strong.
The better the care that we give them, the finer and larger become their
fruits.
Trees are valuable to us in so many ways and appeal so deeply to our
love of the beautiful things in Nature that we should all be interested
in them. If we give the trees a chance, they will do their share toward
making our lives comfortable and happy.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WHERE HAS NATURE SPREAD THE FOREST?
Our forefathers who came across the water to America found forests
stretching away from the water's edge into an unknown wilderness. The
settlements spread very slowly into the pathless woods, for there lurked
danger from the Indians and wild animals. The Allegheny Mountains also
held the settlers back for a long time.
The pioneers found the country, as far as the Ohio River and beyond,
still forest covered; but by and by openings or _prairies_ began to
appear. By the time they had crossed the Great River the forests had
been left behind, except for fringes of trees upon the lowlands along
the streams.
From this point westward the open prairies stretched away to the
horizon. Antelope, deer, and buffalo were often seen feeding on the rich
grasses. The adventurous pioneers pushed on across the fertile prairies,
coming at last to a drier and higher region which we have called the
_Great Plains_. On these plains the Rocky Mountains came in sight. These
mountains gradually became higher as the travelers approached, until
they rose before them like a mighty wall. Here they again met vast
forests, which covered all the higher slopes.
Beyond the Rocky Mountains they crossed a broad land of deserts where
little rain fell. The vegetation was so scanty and springs so far apart
that many of their horses and cattle died. The dreary and barren deserts
were followed by another lofty range of mountains. Entering these
mountains, the pioneers came upon the most magnificent forest that had
yet been seen upon our continent. After traveling for some days over
rugged mountains, they at last emerged from the forests upon the Great
Valley of California.
[Illustration: A forest of great trees in the Sierras, near the Yosemite
Valley.]
Scattered over portions of the valley were oak trees, giving it the
appearance of a park. When the valley had been passed the pioneers
climbed the last mountain range, and from this range looked down upon
the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Here they found forests again, some of
the trees being of enormous size. Thus we see that the eastern part of
the continent was nearly all forested, but that in the West the forests
grew chiefly on the mountains, because there is not enough rainfall upon
the plains and in the valleys.
The trees that make up most of the forests of our country are of two
very different kinds. There is one kind that has narrow or needle-like
leaves which they keep through the winter. These we commonly call
_narrow-leaved_ trees or _conifers_. The most important of the
narrow-leaved trees are the pines, firs, spruces, and hemlock. Such
trees form the forests of the greater part of the highlands of the
northern and northeastern parts of our country. The pines also find a
congenial home upon the lowlands of the Southern states. Trees of the
second kind have broad leaves, and usually their wood is rather hard.
Hence we call them _broad-leaved_ or _hardwood_ trees. Since most of
these trees drop their leaves in winter, we often speak of them as
_deciduous_ trees. By far the larger part of the lands of the Eastern
states that are now cultivated were found by the first settlers to be
covered with hardwood trees. We are familiar with many of the hardwoods
through their use in furniture and various household utensils and farm
implements. The most important varieties are the walnut, hickory,
chestnut, beech, maple, ash, oak, elm, locust, and linden.