Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations - Kootenay Local Agricultural Society

While Surell fretted about how to restore upland forests, George Perkins
Marsh toured France during his service as American ambassador in Italy.
Witnessing the long-term effects of forest clearing on both steep land and
valley fields, Marsh saw that bare, eroded mountain slopes unfit for habitation
no longer absorbed rainfall but rapidly shed runoff that picked up
sediment and dumped it on valley fields.
An observant tourist, Marsh feared the New World was repeating Old
World mistakes.
The historical evidence is conclusive as to the destructive changes occasioned
by the agency of man upon the flanks of the Alps, the Apennines,
the Pyrenees, and other mountain ranges in Central and Southern
Europe, and the progress of physical deterioration has been so rapid
that, in some localities, a single generation has witnessed the beginning
and the end of the melancholy revolution. ...It is certain that a desolation,
like that which has overwhelmed many once beautiful and fertile
regions of Europe, awaits an important part of the territory of the
United States, and of other comparatively new countries over which
European civilization is now extending its sway. 10
Marsh compared what he saw in Europe to New York State, where the
upper Hudson River was filling with sediment as farmers plowed up the
forest. He held that gentle slopes in areas where rainfall was evenly distributed
throughout the seasons could be reasonably farmed on a permanent
basis. Ireland, England, and the vast Mississippi basin fit this definition.
In contrast, steep terrain could not be plowed for long without
triggering severe erosion, especially in regions with torrential rains or
parching droughts.
French deforestation peaked in the early 1800s. In 1860 the marquis de
Mirabeau estimated that half of France’s forest had been cleared in the previous
century. Inspector of Forests Jonsse de Fontanière echoed Surell’s
stark assessment of the prospects of the High Alps. “The cultivators of the
land ...will be compelled ...to abandon the places which were inhabited
by their forefathers; and this solely in consequence of the destruction
of the soil, which, after having supported so many generations, is giving
place little by little, to sterile rocks.” 11
French authorities began passing laws to protect and restore public and
private woodlands in 1859. Clearing of European forests accelerated briefly,
though, when twenty-eight thousand walnut trees were cut to supply
European manufacturers with gunstocks during the American Civil War.
let them eat colonies 103