EUCALYPTUS TREES. 13 
the last pasture parched, and the last waterpool dried 
up, great atmospheric changes would send the rain- 
clouds over the thirsty land with all the vehemence 
of precipitation, and would convert dry creeks into 
foaming torrents, or inundate with furious floods the 
very pastures over which the carcasses of the famished 
cattle and sheep were strewn about! Picture to your. 
selves the ruined occupant of the soil, hardly able 
- to escape with his bare life from the sudden scenes of 
these tragic disasters! Fortunately, as yet such ex- 
treme events may not have happened commonly ; yet 
they did occur, and pronounced their lessons impress- 
ively. Let it be well considered that it is not alone 
the injudicious overstocking of many a pasture, or 
the want of water-storage, but frequently the very 
want of rain itself for years in extensive woodless 
districts, which renders occupation of many of our 
inland tracts so precarious. Let it also not be forgot- 
ten how, without a due proportion of woodland, no 
country can be great and prosperous! Remember 
how whole mountain districts of Southern Europe be- 
came, with the fall of the forests, utterly depopulated; 
how the gushes of wide currents washed away all ara- 
ble soil, while the bordering flat land became buried 
in debris ; how its rivers became filled with sediment, 
while the population of the lowland were at the same 
time involved in poverty and ruin! Let us recollect 
that in many places the remaining alpine inhabitant 
had to toil with his very fuel for many miles up to the 
once wooded hills, where barrenness and bleakness 
would perhaps no longer allow a tree to vegetate! It 
should be borne in mind that the productiveness of 
cereal fields is often increased at the rate of fully fifty 
