densely concentrated in a few places only, all demands on the 

 wood resources were comparatively so limited as to cause, 

 perhaps, nowhere vast destruction of the timber-vegetation, 

 much less any alarm for meeting the requirements of the 

 future. Then followed the first gold period, with all its 

 bustle, turmoils and agitations, preventing reflection on almost 

 anything except the immediate wants of that stormy time. 

 Subsequently, when the commotion and excitement of the 

 earlier gold era had calmed down, other obstacles arose, which 

 in their conflicts brought much sadness on this young country, 

 and retarded for years its full progress. But now, when 

 apparently also these difficulties have been surmounted, it 

 will be all the more incumbent on our statesmen and tegis- 

 lators, to exclude no longer from their consideration and watch- 

 fulness that remaining portion of a bequest, which bountiful 

 nature, in its rich woods, has entrusted to our care. The 

 maintenance of these forest riches should engage not only the 

 loftiest forethought, but also a well-guided and scrupulous 

 vigilance. 



How forests beneficially affect a clime, how they supply 

 equable humidity, how they afford extensive shelter, create 

 springs, and control the flow of rivers : all this the teachings 

 of science, the records of history, and, more forcibly still, the 

 sufferings or even ruin of numerous and vast communities, 

 have demonstrated in sad experiences, not only in times long 

 past, but even in very recent periods. In what manner the 

 forests arrest passing miasmata, or set a limit to the spreading 

 of rust-spores from ruined cornfields ; in what manner their 

 humid atmosphere and their feathered singers effectually 

 obstruct the march of armies of locusts in the Orient, or 

 hinder the progress of vast masses of acrydia in North 

 America, or oppose the wanderings of other insects elsewhere 

 all this has been clearly witnessed in our own age. How the 

 forests, as slow conductors of heat, lessen the temperature of 

 warm climes, or banish siroccos; how forests, as ready con- 

 ductors of electricity, much influence and attract the current 

 of the vapours, or impede the elastic flow of the air with its 

 storms and its humidity far above the actual height of the 

 trees, and how they condense the moisture of the clouds by 

 lowering the temperature of the atmosphere, has over and 

 over again been ascertained by many a thoughtful observer. 

 In what mode forests shelter the soil from solar heat, and 

 produce coolness through radiation from the endlessly multi- 

 plied surfaces of their leaves, and through the process of 



