Elzeard Bouffier was a poor,solitary shepherd, who lived in the barren mountains of southern France.
His love of nature gave him anincredible idea.
The author travelled in themountains, where nothing grew, but wild lavender.
Once he met a shepherd thereand left peace in his presence.
For three years he had beenplanting acorns in this wilderness.
He had planted one hundredthousand.
Of the hundred thousand,twenty thousand had sprouted.
Of the twenty thousand hestill expected to lose half.
There remanded ten thousandoak trees would grow where nothing had grown before.
He said that if God grantedhim life, in another 30 years he would have planted so many trees, that theseten thousand would be like a drop of water in the ocean.
In five years, when the authormet shepherd again, his forest was eleven kilometers in length and threekilometers at its greatest width.
When you remember that all this had come from the hands and the soulof this one man, you understood that man could be as effective as God in waysother than destruction.
When the author returned for afinal visit in 1945 after the World War II, everything had changed there.
Not only was there the forest,but many villages appeared there.
And more than 10 000people in the area owe their happiness to Elzeard Bouffier.
When I think that one man wasable to cause this land Canaan to grow from wasteland, I am convinced that inspite at everything, humanity is good.
Elzeard Bouffier lived a happylife and died a happy person.