There is an abundance of reasons for the protection of our diminishing forests and for the creation of new forest areas without assigning to the forests functions that they do not exercise. The covering of an area by a great city, a village, a forest, a barn, or a tent modifies the climate of the particular area covered so long as the covering remains, but there is no appreciable climatic effect a few feet above the surface of the earth between a forest and a field of grain. The climate of a region like the American continent is controlled fundamentally by the great oceans that wash its shores, by the trend of its mountain systems and their height, and by the direction of its prevailing winds. The vast vaporous atmosphere that flows inland from the Atlantic Ocean to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, deluging our cereal plains with its life-giving precipitation will continue its pluvial generosity without any heed whatever to the puny scratchings of man upon the surface of Mother Earth. Nothing that man can do will intensify drought conditions on this continent or augment the volume of floods. It is time that we return to sanity in considering this matter instead of being frightened by the dire forebodings of well-meaning but purely visionary enthusiasts, no matter how noble their aspirations may be or how self-sacrificingly they have consecrated themselves to the redemption of humanity. It is certain that forests restrict the flow of moderate falls of rain, but they do not restrain the flow of flood waters, because, surprising as it may seem to one who has not tested the matter, floods do not occur until after all surfaces, open fields and forests alike, have become saturated, and then the run-off of the two surfaces is equal. CHAPTER XIV CLIMATES FOR HEALTH AND PLEASURE ONE’S LIFE WOULD BE PROLONGED IF, LIKE THE BIRDS, ONE COULD MIGRATE ANNUALLY WITH THE TEMPERATURE—CHRISTMAS IN MANY CLIMES—THE HOTTEST AND COLDEST PLACES IN THE WORLD From what has gone before it is apparent that the regions of the earth where man is at his best estate, so far as climate can determine his environment, may be broadly defined in this country as southern New England, southern and central New York, the Middle Atlantic States, the Ohio Valley, the southern Lake Region and westward to the middle of Kansas and Nebraska; in Europe it includes the British Isles, France, Switzerland, extreme northern Italy, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Holland, and the extreme southern parts of Norway and Sweden. But in none of these regions is the climate equally good during all seasons. In fact there are two short seasons in each year when it is debilitating.