176 OUTLINES OF FORESTRY. 



munication, have been brought in modern times to yield and 

 distribute all that supplies the material necessities, all that 

 contributes to the sensuous enjoyments and conveniences, of 

 civilized life. The Scythia, the Thule, the Britain, the 

 Germany, and the Gaul which the Koman writers describe in 

 such forbidding terms have been brought almost to rival the 

 native luxuriance and easily- won plenty of Southern Italy; 

 and, while the fountains of oil and wine that refreshed old 

 Greece and Syria and Northern Africa have almost ceased to 

 flow, and the soils of those fair lands are turned to thirsty and 

 inhospitable deserts, the hyperborean regions of Europe have 

 learned to conquer, or rather compensate, the rigors of climate, 

 and have attained to a material wealth and variety of product 

 that, with all their natural advantages, the granaries of the 

 ancient world can hardly be said to have enjoyed." 



