POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



715 



practical enough to consider that a careful 

 culture might now cover the mountains 

 again with the same wealth. Perhaps, al- 

 ready, in fifty years, America will have 

 reached the same stage ; a few monsters of 

 the forest will be admired, and it will hard- 

 ly appear credible that the ancestors in 

 their greed and ignorance burned down 

 these priceless treasures for an ephemeral 

 gain, and even where not the slightest 

 gain could be obtained by the wanton de- 

 struction. The United States possess still 

 the finest forests of the globe, but in the 

 land of haste, hurry, and greed, anything 

 which can not be turned into money at short 

 notice is destroyed. A little more fore- 

 thought might benefit not only the future 

 but also the present generations. The* cli- 

 mate of Japan is not quite so fine as that of 

 the Western United States, but similar re- 

 sults will follow similar causes. Where the 

 land, freed from forests, is used for agricult- 

 ural purposes, this forest destruction has a 

 fair excuse ; but, where enormous tracts of 

 land are denuded for stock-raising, the very 

 means will defeat the end : stock can not 

 be raised without water, and water will not 

 grow ; and, with the disappearance of moist- 

 ure and forests, hard, tough, varieties of 

 grass will alone cover the mountain-slopes. 

 Japan is the land of inundations, and the 

 effects of forests upon moisture are here 

 most strikingly illustrated. Every thunder- 

 shower sends its whole quantity of water 

 without delay to the rivers and the sea, and 

 within a few hours a mountain-valley has 

 seen a dry channel, a raging torrent, and 

 a little brook occupying the same bed ; 

 thousands of acres of good land along these 

 numerous mountain-streams can not be cul- 

 tivated, because the forests are lacking 

 which would retain the moisture and allow 

 it only gradually to seek the river and ocean. 

 We ean not realize enough the consequences 

 of forest destruction. But even arbor-days 

 are only a small remedy ; the state alone 

 can own large tracts of successfully culti- 

 vated forest-land." 



Cultivation of Liquorice. The State 

 Department has published a collection of 

 consular reports on "The Liquorice-Plant 

 and its Cultivation in Various Countries." 

 In England the plant is cultivated in a 



sandy, loamy soil, the chief requisite of 

 which is that it should be deep enough to 

 allow the roots to get a good length. A 

 manuring is given the ground at planting, 

 and the crop is gathered in three years and 

 a half afterward. The plants do better, 

 after the first season, in a hot, dry summer. 

 They are not harmed by frost, or afflicted 

 by any worm or parasite. The soil be- 

 tween the rows may be cultivated in other 

 plants during the first two years. The 

 grower plants a fresh crop in the spring of 

 each year, and in the fall of the same year 

 harvests the one of three years and a half's 

 growth. In harvesting, a deep trench is 

 dug, to expose the roots without injuring 

 them, and the whole plant is carefully taken 

 out. Liquorice grows wild in Spain, but 

 requires eight years to reach maturity. 

 Where it has once taken root, it is almost 

 impossible to eradicate it. It exhibits many 

 varieties, in the color of the bark, the pro- 

 portions of saccharine elements and starch, 

 and woodiness. The ground is pulled at 

 intervals of three, four, or five years, ac- 

 cording to circumstances, by digging trench- 

 es and pulling all visible stalks as long as 

 possible, until they break. The plant is 

 also found and gathered in Asiatic Turkey, 

 Greece, Italy, Sicily, etc. 



Condition of the Oceanic Abysses. Mr. 



John Murray, director of the Challenger 

 publications, presents, as a summary of re- 

 sults, that in the abysmal regions which 

 cover one half of the earth's surface, and 

 which are undulating plains from two to 

 five miles beneath the surface of the sea, 

 we have a very uniform set of conditions. 

 The temperature is near the freezing-point 

 of fresh water, and its range does not ex- 

 ceed seven degrees, and is constant all the 

 year round in any locality. Sunlight and 

 plant-life are absent, and, although animals 

 belonging to all the large types are present, 

 there is no great variety of form or abun- 

 dance of individuals ; change of any kind 

 is exceedingly slow. In the more elevated 

 portions of the regions the deposits consist 

 principally of dead shells and skeletons of 

 surface animals ; in the more depressed 

 ones, of a red clay mixed with volcanic frag- 

 mental matter, the remains of pelagic verte- 

 brates, cosmic dust, and manganese-iron 



