Note 53 — Chapter X · PINZOLO AND CAMPIGLIO.

In Southern Tyrol campaniles are generally built by the communes which have realised their wealth by cutting down their forests, and the great sawmills at the mouth of Val di Genova have undoubtedly had a large share in the execution of this pious work. It is most distressing to see from year to year how greed of immediate gain is leading the peasantry to treat their mountains like convicts. Ample as the locks were, they have been terribly thinned even in the last few years. Val di Genova, within my recollection, has lost much of its ancient and primeval wealth of verdure. The comparative barrenness of its lower portion was painful on my last visit. Good forest-laws may retrieve in the future the waste of the last few years, but no traveller in this century will ever see the valley clothed in the same full-folded mantle which, eleven years ago, made our long walk from the Presanella to Val Rendena one continuous delight.