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Most people know that trees are beautiful things. A great many people know that they are useful things. But few people, perhaps, realize that trees are absolutely essential to existence. History, indeed, is an arm-in-arm march of Man and Forest. Not only would man never have been able to advance from savagery without trees, but without trees he could not have even been a savage. He could not have been at all.

Have we ever realized that in some senses the tree is the father of humanity?

Directly we begin to think a hundred things jump into our minds which show us the immense importance of trees. We see that an express train, rushing with a great clatter of iron and steel across the earth, is a forest in motion. The carriages were hewn out of the forest; the seats on which the passengers sit, the floor on which they rest their feet, the roof which protects them from the changes and chances of climate, were once trees growing in the kindly sun and rooted fast in the earth.

Not only this, the iron and steel which make such a pompous clatter, as though they were doing all the work, could not have taken their part in the advance of humanity without fire, and without trees there could be no fire. The steam shrieking from the whistle, the smoke drifting from the funnel, the sparks whirling up into the air, were once trees. Every spark was once lodged in a tree, every gas was once buried in a tree, every lump of coal was once hidden in a tree. The death of the forest is the birth of the coalfield, and out of the coalfield leaps the genie called Progress, man’s helper and salvation, in her robe of fire.

Let us turn away from the train, and wherever we look we shall see the same energy and activity of the forest. Our houses are cut, like saplings, from the forest. When we throw up our window we lift a branch, when we open our door we move a tree. We cross the room, we are trampling the forest. We sit, the forest supports us. We write, it is still the forest that serves us. It is cold; we will have a fire; the forest lights it. We are hungry; let us eat; the forest cooks our meal.

There is not a traffic of the human race, not an art, not a science, not a comfort, and not a beauty which does not issue from the heart of a tree. Strange, too, is it that the centuries of a man’s existence are divided by a tree, on one side the centuries before, and on the other the centuries after, the Cross of Christ. If we cross the desert of Sahara we find ourselves ploughing through an ocean of sand. Nothing will grow there. It is a dead land, profitless, empty, appalling. Now, the whole earth would be one hideous Sahara but for trees. And Sahara would not be a desert if t were covered by greenwood. The earth is what it is according to the presence or the absence of trees.

The Forests That Form an Umbrella to Shade the Earth from the Sun

Forests present to the sun an immense umbrella. They shield the soil from rays which would otherwise burn up into smoke-like dust the rich pastures of the earth’s surface. Herbage, which grows under the shelter of this immense umbrella, is itself a form of sunshade, as it were, a doll’s sunshade; it seeks to imitate the mighty forest by protecting the soil from the rays of the sun. Without trees the richest soil would soon perish and become a desert of sand.

For not only do forests intercept the scorching rays of the sun, driving them back from the earth, they also preserve the springs at their roots from the thirsty greed of those rays.

All the countries along the lovely Mediterranean Sea Turkey, Italy, Spain, and France, though still beautiful in their colouring, and so pleasant in winter that people flock to them from all parts of the world, are, nevertheless, the ruin of what they once were.

Once upon a time these lands were fertile to an unusual degree, with plenty of springs to give them water for man and beast, and to give life to their crops. But the axe was laid to the root of the tree; the mighty forests covering those splendid mountains, and looking so useless and idle, were cut down.

How the Cutting Down of the Trees Has Dried up the Earth

The result soon showed itself. The land grew sulky. The springs dried. Only in certain places was it possible for man to scrape together a living. We may now walk for a whole day along the Riviera without seeing a single bird. Far worse than the case of the countries bordering the Mediterranean is the case presented by the condition of British India. When we read of a terrible famine ravaging that mighty continent like a wolf, sweeping away the inhabitants as if they were so many flies, we should remind ourselves that man’s folly is the cause of this appalling havoc.

Once the mountain slopes of India were covered by magnificent forests; they were cut down and sold for money. The people did not realize that God makes a thing useful as well as beautiful. The beautiful trees, hewn down as a revolution hews down the gilded idlers of society, were in reality the most useful servants of India. It was those idle-looking trees which, in the blessed season of rain, drank up at a million million mouths the precious drops of moisture, and stored them up for that dread of India the sunny day. Now, when the rain falls, there are few forests to catch it; the drops strike the earth, sink in, or slide to the rivers, and away they go to sea water running away from a parched and arid land. The great forest was India’s water-tap.

The Enormous Value of Trees to the Earth and to Man

Trees, then, we see, not only do service to the soil, and not only preserve for our use the springs of water, but they also affect climate. The climates of countries are very largely influenced by the presence or absence of trees. Humboldt, the man of science, has summed up the service rendered by forests under three heads: (1) They screen the soil from the heat of the sun’s rays; (2) their leaves offer an immense surface to the cooling process of radiation; (3) their leaves give off an incalculable evaporation of moisture.

From trees we get coal and materials for buildings; we get also valuable drugs, gums, dyes, and articles of food. But, above all these things, it is important to remember that trees influence the air and the soil of the country; that they oppose their quiet strength to the great enemies of our race extreme heat and extreme cold; and that they have an all-important bearing on the hidden springs of the earth.

We should cultivate in ourselves a love for trees, and look upon them with something more than mere admiration.