and Nations on the extent and situation of Forests. 257 



and deep stratum of vegetable mould ; that the more deli- 

 cate plants, if expected to thrive in the southern districts 

 of Europe, require a similar situation ; that the countries 

 stripped of forests preserve scarcely a vestige indicative of 

 their former productiveness ; that the features of many coun- 

 tries, which have lost every trace of their former severe and 

 unprofitable climate, are no longer recognisable ; that the 

 marshes of Burgundy have been rendered fit for the culti- 

 vation of the vine, and that Dauphine has ceased to be 

 placed, as it was under the dominion of the. Romans, on the 

 borders of cultivated territory ; that maize yields fine crops 

 even on this side of the Spanish and Italian frontiers; 

 that the olive-tree is not confined to Greece and Italy ; that 

 the climate of the United States becomes milder in proportion 

 as the settlers destroy and clear away the forests ; and that 

 the vegetables transplanted from Europe, which refused to 

 thrive on account of the damp and cold condition of these 

 woody countries, easily arrive at a state of perfection ; that, 

 on the other hand, the fertUe plains on the slopes of Mount 

 Atlas, deservedly called the gardens of the Hesperides, have 

 lost all their fertility, together with their streams and forests ; 

 that the Canary Isles, extolled by the ancients for their 

 delights and remarkable productiveness, are now despoiled 

 of their forests and underwood, and threatened with the 

 miseries of dearth and barrenness. If we consider all this, 

 we are no longer in need of arguments to prove, that forests 

 are a most essential element of comparative geography, espe- 

 cially as, owing to their influence upon the material interests 

 of nations, they are likely to become an object of still greater 

 importance ; also because these interests are, by a certain 

 party, proclaimed as the basis of intellectual interests ; so that 

 all the relations of the population are both directly and in- 

 directly very closely connected with forests. 



Moreover, if we take in consideration that forests furnish 

 the materials for the formation of that vegetable mould from 

 which plants derive the greater portion of their nourishment, 

 and that every thing which falls from them is converted into 

 a natural manure ; that the plains situated beyond 68° lat., 

 and probably not long ago abandoned by the sea, present 



