Science and Teaching of Forestry . 



power of supporting vegetable life at all. The rich mould gets washed by 

 winter rains into the valleys ; in the summer months the sand is blown down 

 on top of this ; succeeding rains carry down stones and gravel, till very 

 soon all the most fertile portions of the soil disappear, leaving a residuum 

 which is only capable of supporting vegetation when it becomes fertilised 

 by an exceptional amount of moisture, which, as time progresses, must 

 become rarer and rarer." 



Coming nearer home, to the continent of Europe, we find that all 

 the countries bordering on the Mediterranean Turkey, Spain, Italy, and 

 to some extent France have suffered from the destruction of their woodlands 

 on the hill-sides, many springs having become dry. The political decadence 

 of Spain has been attributed entirely to this cause. The deforesting of the 

 Apennines during the last two centuries has much increased the violence of 

 the mountain-torrents, and in Switzerland the existing forests are found to 

 check both the formation and the descent of avalanches. Russia has not 

 only the largest area of forest of any European State, but the largest per 

 centage, namely, 42 of her whole area, and there is now much energy in 

 conservation and planting. It was, however, recently reported that there 

 was a decrease in the waters of the Volga and consequently in the Caspian, 

 from timber-felling. The ably-managed forests of Sweden are an important 

 source of national revenue, whilst I shall have presently to refer again to those 

 of Germany, the birthplace of the teaching of forest science. In Denmark it 

 appears that the felling of the woods on the Atlantic coast has exposed the 

 country to the sharp sea winds and to drifting sand, forming lagoons and bogs, 

 and causing a marked deterioration of the climate. France it is, however, 

 that perhaps more than any of our Continental neighbours shows the advan- 

 tages of scientific forestry and the danger of its neglect. Useful legislation, 

 dating from the sixteenth century, was swept away at the Revolution, and 

 reckless destruction of forests, especially in the south, has led to frequent 

 and disastrous floods, as in the valleys of the Rhone and Saone. The 

 government are now, at immense expense, replanting the slopes of the Alps, 

 with the beneficial effect of lessening the force of such torrential streams as. 

 the Durance. Moreover the cultivation of the cluster pine in the depart- 

 ment of Landes has converted low marshes between Bayonne and Bordeaux 

 into valuable productive land. 



In Great Britain the abundance of coal renders us independent of wood 

 as fuel, and our geographical position so facilitates the importation of timber 

 that we have to a great extent neglected our woodlands as a source of profit. 

 Our mild insular climate also has enabled us to overlook the hygienic im- 

 portance of forests, and very possibly the conclusion arrived at in the 

 United States, that the soil is most productive when one-fourth woodland, 

 may not be true in our case. Bad seasons and foreign competition, how- 

 ever, cause us to look around us on all sides for means of rendering our land 

 more productive. 



In a report on a visit to the English and Scotch forests made to the 

 India Office by M. Boppe, inspector of French forests, in March last, he 



Considering the present depressed state of agriculture all over Europe, 

 it becomes more and more necessary to endeavour to draw the greatest pos- 

 sible advantage from the land, and, by properly adapting a different vegeta- 

 tion to different soils, to seek to obtain, through the medium of the enormous 

 capital which the present generation can command, the maximum produc- 

 tion from a minimum area. It is thus that the forests are called upon to 

 play an important part in the immediate future, and the farmer will hence- 



