146 FOREST CULTURE AND 
transit of the mineral treasures would not always 
exist, its discovery would be certain to lead to the 
occupation of the country and to the extension of 
pastoral colonization, until an increasing population 
and augmented conveniences for traffic could turn 
mineral wealth, however distantly located, advanta- 
geously to account. But how vastly might not any 
barren tracts of the interior be improved, and how 
many a lordly possession be founded, by patient in- 
dustry and intelligent judgment! Storage of water, 
raising of woods, dissemination of perennial fodder- 
plants, will create alone marvellous changes ; and for 
these operations means are readily enough at com- 
mand. Even the scattering of the grains of the com- 
mon British Orache (Atriplex patulum), an annual but 
autumnal plant, would, on the barest ground, realize 
fodder for sheep ; and the number of plants which for 
such purpose could be chosen are legion. The storage 
of rain-water might, in any rising valley, be so effect- 
ed as to render it, simply by gravitation, available 
for irrigating purposes. 
As a curious fact, it may be instanced that, in some 
of the waterless sandy regions of South Africa, the 
copious naturalization of melon - plants has afforded 
the means of establishing halting-places in a desert 
country. On the sandy shores of the Great Bight, 
and also anywhere in the dry interior, such plants 
might be easily established. The avidity with which 
the natives at Escape Cliffs preserved the melon- 
seeds, after they once had recognized the value of 
their new treasure, holds out the prospect of the grad- 
ual diffusion of such vegetable boons over much unsets, 
thed country, Bias 7 ee are 
