130 THE DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS. [Dec. 



observed by Humboldt that in the tropical regions an immense 

 variety of trees live separately or " unsocially ; " and it is clear that, 

 owing to the immediate benefit reaped from them, trees thus situated 

 are more jealously conserved than their woodland brethren. It is the 

 province of forests beneficently to modify the climate of the adjacent 

 plains, in the cultivated enclosures of which their loss is the most 

 appreciable. Of the succour tlius afforded there is, however, little 

 general recognition — unless, indeed, by the forestry officers appointed 

 by the Governments who systematically evade their representations. 

 Many portions of Australia and New Zealand are also, in their turn, 

 suffering from the multitude of " clearings " made by the early 

 settlers, whose crude efforts may to some extent be condoned by the 

 exigencies of their position. Even now, however, many colonial 

 areas of cultivation — of which rather boastful accounts are given — 

 arc annually extended by the unconsidered destruction of the forests 

 on which much of their ultimate fruitfulness must depend. The 

 " progress " of Florida has of late years been remarkable. This State 

 contained in 1860 only 6586 farms : a number wliich had risen to 

 2.3,438 in 1880. We are told that this indicates a large influx of 

 farmers from other States ; but it also " indicates " a wide levelling 

 of the forests of oak and cedar, pine and hickory, for wliich Florida 

 was once famous. The pampas of South America are also gradually 

 falling under cultivation, and are here and there covered with crops 

 of wheat and maize. Their permanent productiveness, however, will 

 be greatly assisted by the maintenance of the bordering forests : a 

 fact of which the Argentine Government appears to be quite 

 exceptionally conscious. In Canada, on the contrary, the long 

 indifference of the authorities to an average annual production of no 

 less than 2,600,000,000 feet of lumber (broad measure), has been at 

 last compelled to give place to anxiety ; and the Dominion Govern- 

 ment is now reserving large " blocks " of forest at the base of the 

 Eocky Mountains, lest the injury to the climate should become 

 irreparable. From an interesting paper contributed by Sir George 

 Birdwood to the catalogue of the Indian Section of the Forestry 

 Exhibition, it is apparent that, east and west, there has been a 

 singular community of official apathy upon this subject. Of 

 Afghanistan the writer declares that " a once fertile and wealthy 

 country has thus been converted into an inhospitable desert." The 

 Forest Department of India has happily been able to arrest, and in 

 some degree repair, the ravages which up to some forty years ago 

 had lieen going on for centuries in the forests of India and Burma. 

 The whole of Central Asia has more or less suffered from similar 

 causes. 



