Alfalfa, stock raising and dairying, afforestation, " dry-farming " and irrigation are, however, proving that the West can maintain prosperity by not relying upon ordinary agriculture.
Evelyn put in a plea for afforestation, and besides producing a valuable work on arboriculture, he was able to assert in his preface to the king that he had really induced landowners to plant many millions of trees.
The tract derives its name from the extensive afforestation carried through in this region by William the Conqueror in 1079; and the deaths of two of his sons within its confines - Richard killed by a stag, and William Rufus by an arrow - were regarded in their generation as a judgment of Heaven for the cruelty and injustice perpetrated by their father when appropriating the forest.
Yet although the curve of burned lands parallels the curve of afforested lands, afforested lands, afforestation is only a minor part of the problem.