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MAN'S INFLUENCE ON NATURE. 523
more than half a century ago, has totally ceased to be productive, and is
now nothing more than an abode for wild animals. In Brazil and Colombia, naturally the most fertile countries of the whole earth, a few years
are sufficient for exhausting the soil by means of a system of cultivation
which is a mere robbery from it. The trees are burned down, and maize
is sown over the ashes, and the same crop is incessantly removed year after year, until.it is smothered by a fresh growth of brush-wood. This is
burned for the second time, and maize is sown again. Ultimately ferns
and a slimy, fetid sort of grass, called Capim gordura, make their appearance, and the land is then destroyed for the purposes of cultivation.
The question as to how far the agency of man serves either to adorn
or degrade the aspect of nature may seem an idle one to minds of a so-
called positive tendency; but it none the less assumes an importance of
the highest order. The development of mankind is bound up most intimately with the surrounding conditions of nature. A hidden harmony
springs up between the land and the nation which is nourished by it; and
if any society is imprudent enough to lay a disturbing hand on the elements which form the beauty of its territory, it is ultimately sure to repent of it. In a spot where*the country is disfigured, and where all the
grace of poetry has disappeared from the landscape, imagination dies out,
and the mind is impoverished; a spirit of routine and servility takes possession of the soul, and leads it on to torpor and to death. Among the
causes which, in the history of mankind, have effected the extinction of so
many forms of civilization, we must place in the first order the reckless
violence with which most nations have treated the soil which nourished
them. They cut down the forests, exhausted the springs, and made the
rivers overflow, and, after thus injuring the climate, surrounded their towns
with a belt of marshy and unhealthy land; and then, when the nature
which they profaned showed its hostility against them, they began to
hate it, and being unable, like the savage, to fall back on forest-life, they
allowed themselves to fall into deeper and deeper degradation through
the despotism of priests and kings. " Vast domains have been the destruction of Italy," is the opinion of Pliny; but it must be added that
these vast domains, bping cultivated by the hands of slaves, had disfigured the land like a leprosy. Historians have been struck with the extreme decadences of Spain since the days of Charles V., and have endeavored to explain it in various ways. In the opinion of some, the chief
cause of the ruin which has befallen the nation was the discovery of gold
in America; in the opinion of others, the cause was the religious terror organized by the "holy brotherhood" of the Inquisition, the expulsion of
the Jews and Moors, or the sanguinary auto-da-fe of heretics. The fall
of Spain has also been attributed to the iniquitous impost of the alcabala,
and to the system adopted from the French of despotic centralization.
But is not the kind of madness with which the Spaniards have felled the
trees for fear of the small birds, "por miedo de los pajaritos," a point to
be considered in this terrible decadence? The land has become yellow,
| Title | The ocean, atmosphere, and life |
| Creator | Reclus, Elisée |
| Publisher | Harper |
| Place of Publication | New York |
| Date | 1873 |
| Language | eng |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Title | 00000580 |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Transcript | MAN'S INFLUENCE ON NATURE. 523 more than half a century ago, has totally ceased to be productive, and is now nothing more than an abode for wild animals. In Brazil and Colombia, naturally the most fertile countries of the whole earth, a few years are sufficient for exhausting the soil by means of a system of cultivation which is a mere robbery from it. The trees are burned down, and maize is sown over the ashes, and the same crop is incessantly removed year after year, until.it is smothered by a fresh growth of brush-wood. This is burned for the second time, and maize is sown again. Ultimately ferns and a slimy, fetid sort of grass, called Capim gordura, make their appearance, and the land is then destroyed for the purposes of cultivation. The question as to how far the agency of man serves either to adorn or degrade the aspect of nature may seem an idle one to minds of a so- called positive tendency; but it none the less assumes an importance of the highest order. The development of mankind is bound up most intimately with the surrounding conditions of nature. A hidden harmony springs up between the land and the nation which is nourished by it; and if any society is imprudent enough to lay a disturbing hand on the elements which form the beauty of its territory, it is ultimately sure to repent of it. In a spot where*the country is disfigured, and where all the grace of poetry has disappeared from the landscape, imagination dies out, and the mind is impoverished; a spirit of routine and servility takes possession of the soul, and leads it on to torpor and to death. Among the causes which, in the history of mankind, have effected the extinction of so many forms of civilization, we must place in the first order the reckless violence with which most nations have treated the soil which nourished them. They cut down the forests, exhausted the springs, and made the rivers overflow, and, after thus injuring the climate, surrounded their towns with a belt of marshy and unhealthy land; and then, when the nature which they profaned showed its hostility against them, they began to hate it, and being unable, like the savage, to fall back on forest-life, they allowed themselves to fall into deeper and deeper degradation through the despotism of priests and kings. " Vast domains have been the destruction of Italy," is the opinion of Pliny; but it must be added that these vast domains, bping cultivated by the hands of slaves, had disfigured the land like a leprosy. Historians have been struck with the extreme decadences of Spain since the days of Charles V., and have endeavored to explain it in various ways. In the opinion of some, the chief cause of the ruin which has befallen the nation was the discovery of gold in America; in the opinion of others, the cause was the religious terror organized by the "holy brotherhood" of the Inquisition, the expulsion of the Jews and Moors, or the sanguinary auto-da-fe of heretics. The fall of Spain has also been attributed to the iniquitous impost of the alcabala, and to the system adopted from the French of despotic centralization. But is not the kind of madness with which the Spaniards have felled the trees for fear of the small birds, "por miedo de los pajaritos," a point to be considered in this terrible decadence? The land has become yellow, |
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