Hamilton. — Ou the Forests of Netv Zealand. 157 



Italy furnishes perhaps the best object-lesson of the re- 

 lation between forest-cover and water-flow. In 1888 it was 

 generally recognised that steps must be taken to arrest 

 the destruction of the forests on the hills, and hj the laws 

 then passed the Department of Agriculture, in conjunction 

 with the forestal committee of the district, is to designate the 

 territory which, for public reasons, must be reforested under 

 Government control. Private owners may associate them- 

 selves for the purpose of reforestation of areas, and may then 

 borrow money at a low rate of interest from the State Soil 

 Credit Institution. The Forest Department contributes three- 

 fifths of the cost on the condition that the reforestation is 

 done according to the plans of, and within the time speci- 

 fied by, the Government. Where the owners do not consent 

 or fail to do the work, the department has the right to expro- 

 priate and reforest alone — the owners having, however, the 

 right to redeem within five years by paying expenses up to date. 

 The department has also the right to restrict pasturage in 

 alpine forests, paying, however, for damage sustained by the 

 owner. Under the above regulations half a million acres have 

 been replanted. 



It was in 1888 also that Eussia put an end to liberty to 

 cut, burn, destroy, and devastate. The law as it now stands 

 is administered, as far as protective forests go, by a forestry 

 council, consisting of law officers, officers of the general ad- 

 ministration, and the local forestry administrators. For 

 private forests, not classed as protective, the right to clear 

 IS to be dependent on the consent of the council ; while, too 

 severe cuttmg, or the cutting of too large a proportion of 

 timber without a view to reproduction, is forbidden. If any 

 devastation takes place replanting becomes obligatory, and 

 the Government forester may execute the planting at the 

 expense of the delinquent owner. Assistance is given to- 

 wards rational forest-management, and the Government sus- 

 tains four higher, seven middle, and thirteen lower forestry 

 schools. 



In Svkdtzerland sporadic enactments of individual cantons to 

 check forest devastation are found as early as the thirteenth or 

 fourteenth centuries, but it is only within the present century 

 that the matter has been seriously taken in hand by the differ- 

 ent cantons. In 1876 a Federal law was passed which gives 

 the Federation control over the forests of the mountain region, 

 embracing eight entire cantons and parts of seven others, or 

 over a million acres of forest. The Federation itself does not 

 own any forest-land, and the cantons hardly a hundred thou- 

 sand acres — somewhat over 4 per cent, of the forest area, 

 two-thirds of which is held in communal ownership and the 

 rest by private owners. The law is quite remarkable as illus- 



