82 FOREST CULTURE AND a 
vitality, and what mortal will measure the share of 
delight enjoyed by any organism! Why should even 
the life of a plant be expended cruelly and wastefully, 
especially if, perhaps, this very plant stood already in 
youthful elegance, while yet the diprotodon (a wom- 
bat of the size of a buffalo) was roaming over the for- 
est ridges encircling Port Phillip Bay—when those 
forest ridges on the very place of this city were still 
clothed in their full natal garb. Do not assume that 
I lean to transmutation doctrines ; or that to my un- 
derstanding there is an uninterrupted transit from 
the thoughts which inspire the mind to the faculties 
of animals and to the vitality of plants! Yet that 
individual life, whatever it may be, which we often 
so thoughtlessly and so ruthlessly destroy, but which 
we never can restore, should be respected. Is it not 
as if the sinking tree was speaking imploringly to us, 
and when falling wished to convey to us its sadness 
and its grief? Like the nomadic wanderer of the 
Australian soil passed away before us, so I fear most 
of the traces of our beautiful and evergreen forest 
will be lost ere long. 
. Itis a goodly sight to see 
What heaven has done for this delicious land ; 
What flowers of fragrance blush on every tree, 
What glad’ning prospects o’er the hills expand ! 
But man would mar them with an impious hand.’”’ 
BYRON. 
Beyond the plain utilitarian purposes of our forests 
(some of which I endeavored briefly to explain), and 
beyond all, the important functions which the woods 
have to perform in the great economy of Nature, they 
possess still other claims on our consideration, such as 
ought to evoke some feeling of piety toward them, 
