ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, NOVEMBER 3, 1875. 3 



gas, while the leaves of plants are constantly removing it, and 

 under the action of light substituting oxygen. The life of man 

 and animals is thus intimately connected with the vegetable pro- 

 ductions of the globe, not merely as regards the materials for their 

 food, but also in reference to the air they breathe. " How inter- 

 esting," says Johnston, " is it to contemplate the relations, at once 

 wise and beautiful, by which dead organic matter, intelligent 

 man, and living plants are all bound together ! The dead tree 

 and the fossd coal lie almost useless things, in reference to animal 

 and vegetable life ; man employs them in a thousand ways as min- 

 isters to his wants, his comforts, or his dominion over Nature ; 

 and in so doing he himself directly, though unconsciously, minis- 

 ters to the wants of those vegetable races, which seem but to live 

 and grow for his use and maintenance. 1 ' 



When forests are destroyed, as they are everywhere in America 

 by the European settlers, with an imprudent precipitation, the 

 springs are entirely dried up, or become less abundant. In those 

 mountains of Greece, which have been deprived of their forests, 

 the streams have disappeared. The inconsiderate felling of woods, 

 or the neglect to maintain them, has changed regions noted for 

 fertility into scenes of sterility. The sultry atmosphere and the 

 droughts of the Cape de "Verd Islands are attributed to the 

 destruction of forests. In large districts of India the climate 

 and rainfall have deteriorated from a similar cause, and the 

 Government are now using means to avert and remedy the mis- 

 chief. In wooded countries, where the rains are excessive, as in 

 Rio Janeiro, the climate has been improved by the diminution of 

 the trees. Gardner says, that since the axe has been laid on the 

 dense forests surrounding the city of Rio Janeiro, the climate has 

 become dry. In fact, so much was the quantity of rain diminished, 

 that the Brazilian Government was obliged to pass a law prohibit- 

 ing the felling of trees in the Corcovado Range. Muller states 

 that the cultivation of grain, which has so completely transformed 

 one part of the wilderness of Australia, has already exercised a 

 most beneficial influence on the increase of rain. 



The conservation of forests is unquestionably a subject of great 

 importance. It is now occupying the attention of the Govern- 

 ment of India, and of many other Governments, and it will 

 sooner or later engage that of all our colonies. The physical 

 history of every country proves incontestably that a mode- 

 rate extent of forests, especially on mountain slopes and ele- 



