culture of the silkworm has moved farther south, to regions of atmospheric moisture.  As an illustration of the complete change in the rivers, we may take Polo’s statement that a certain river, the Hun Ho, was so large and deep that merchants ascended it from the sea with heavily laden boats; today this river is simply a broad sandy bed, with shallow, rapid currents wandering hither and thither across it, absolutely unnavigable.  But we do not have to depend upon written records.  The dry wells, and the wells with water far below the former watermark, bear testimony to the good days of the past and the evil days of the present.  Wherever the native vegetation has been allowed to remain, as, for instance, here and there around a sacred temple or imperial burying ground, there are still huge trees and tangled jungle, fragments of the glorious ancient forests.  The thick, matted forest growth formerly covered the mountains to their summits.  All natural factors favored this dense forest growth, and as long as it was permitted to exist the plains at the foot of the mountains were among the most fertile on the globe, and the whole country was a garden.  Not the slightest effort was made, however, to prevent the unchecked cutting of the trees, or to secure reforestation.  Doubtless for many centuries the tree-cutting by the inhabitants of the mountains worked but slowly in bringing about the changes that have now come to pass; doubtless for generations the inroads were scarcely noticeable.  But there came a time when the forest had shrunk sufficiently to make each year’s cutting a serious matter, and from that time on the destruction proceeded with appalling rapidity; for of course each year of destruction rendered the forest less able to recuperate, less able to resist next year’s inroad.  Mr. Meyer describes the ceaseless progress of the destruction even now, when there is so little left to destroy.  Every morning men and boys go out armed with mattox or axe, scale the steepest mountain sides, and cut down and grub out, root and branch, the small trees and shrubs still to be found.  The big trees disappeared centuries ago, so that now one of these is never seen save in the neighborhood of temples, where they are artificially protected; and even here it takes all the watch and care of the tree-loving priests to prevent their destruction.  Each family, each community, where there is no common care exercised in the interest of all of them to prevent deforestation, finds its profit in the immediate use of the fuel which would otherwise be used by some other family or some other community.  In the total absence of regulation of the matter in the interest of the whole people, each small group is inevitably pushed into a policy of destruction which can not afford to take thought for the morrow.  This is just one of those matters which it is fatal to leave to unsupervised individual control.  The forest can only be protected by the State, by the Nation; and the liberty of action of individuals must be conditioned upon what the State or Nation determines to be necessary for the common safety.