In America neither the State nor Federal governments have made any decided efforts, against the evils that are to ensue, from the scarcity of timber; the native forests are rapidly disappearing, to leave the country at an early future, entirely unprovided with an adequate supply of an article, ranking among the essential requirements of social life. The importance of planting and preserving trees is self evident, and a scarcity of timber cannot fail in a short period of time, to draw the attention of the public to an evil that will be found to be a national calamity. Unlike other crops, forests require generations to mature. How to raise forests then, in the quickest and most economical manner, will some day be a subject of very considerable moment to the American people…

Vast tracts of country farms being stripp’d of their timber have been rendered uninhabitable, that were once celebrated for their fertility; and, to use the words of a scientific writer “Since the advent of the Christian religion, the physical history of our planet records the steady growth of a desert, which made its appearance in the table land of southern Syria, and gradually spreading eastward down the Euphrates towards Afghanistan; and westward along both shores of the Mediterranian, now esctends from eastern Persia to the western esctremity of Portugal, and sends its harbingers into Southern France, and the southestern provinces of European Russia. Like a virulent cancer the azoic (?) sand drifts of the Moab (?) desert have eaten their way into Southern Europe, and Northern Africa, and dried up the life-springs of districts, which beyond all dispute, were once the garden regions of the earth.”

…Is there any crime against Nature which draws down a more terrible curse than that of stripping our Mother Earth of her sylvan covering? —Earth was Eden once, and our misery is the punishment of our sins against the world of plants. The burning sun of the desert is the angel with the flaming sword who stands between us and Paradise.

In many parts of the United States, recent as is, its settlement, clearing has proceeded too far. The central portions of Ohio, parts of Kentucky and Michigan, and to a greater extent, the cotton growing states of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina are becoming arid, with frequent droughts or devastating floods. Is it not time, then, to stay the destroying hand, and to foster rather than destroy? How long will it be before the redwood forests of California cease to exist, and the curse of drought fall on the fertile vallies of the coast range. Henceforth before a man cuts down a tree let him consider well whether it can be spared, remembering that what he can cut down in an hour, perhaps takes hundreds of years to grow.

—Henry Shaw, founder of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 1880