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Show Proof That Forests Have Hygienic Value We hear much of the importance of the conservation of forests from an economic standpoint, but little is said of the hygijnlc value of forests. Forests contribute to the general health by brsaking the force of steadily stead-ily blowing trlnds. They mitigate the heat of summer by the vast amount of evaporation from their leaves that occurs by day. They also promote rainfalls. Thus they check the tendency ten-dency of the earth to desiccate, which is almost as injurious to health as It Is to vegetation. Cholera often passes a wooded district dis-trict and revels i a treeless one. A certain road In 'ndia leads for GO miles through a dense forest. Farther Far-ther on It runs fo; 90 miles through n barren plain. Hundreds of persons travel the entire r-ad daily. Now, in t lie first or wood . section cases of cholera seldom occur, while within the latter It has been of frequent occurrence. oc-currence. One year cholera raged in Allahabad. Soldiers whose barracks wcre on a hill suffered the most from the epidemic; those in barracks surrounded sur-rounded ty four rows of trees much less ; but not a single case was reported re-ported among the soldiers whose barracks bar-racks were in a thicket. It was the same the next year. |