THE CAPE SYSTEM 139 



originally than that on hundreds of other mountain 

 farms which are merely grazing veld. 



From the old accounts of the Colony it is clear that 

 the lower slopes of the southern mountains were once 

 fairly well covered with forest, now represented by a few 

 isolated patches, as at Groot Vader's Bosch near Swel- 

 lendam. In the neighbourhood of the Peninsula and 

 Stellenbosch, the oldest settlements in the Colony, the 

 too free cutting down of the timber has been the cause 

 of the almost complete disappearance of the indigenous 

 forest, but farther north and east the chief cause of de- 

 struction has been the veld fires lighted for the purpose 

 of allowing young grass and bush to spring up afresh 

 for cattle to graze upon. There can be no doubt that 

 the hindrance of the forest growth is a great evil, except 

 perhaps to the farmers whose cattle graze on some of 

 the mountains. There is a well-supported belief that 

 forest-clad hills receive a heavier rainfall than the same 

 hills deprived of their trees ; but the destruction of forest 

 and bush has a much wider effect than this. Living 

 vegetation and the accumulation of dead twigs and 

 leaves hinder the rapid dispersal of rain-water and bind 

 the sandy soil, thus causing a more gradual delivery of 

 the water into the streams, and at the same time allow- 

 ing a greater proportion of it to sink into the ground 

 than is the case in a 'deforested region. The rivers fed 

 by the mountain streams, therefore, rise less suddenly 

 and maintain their supply of water for a longer period ; 

 and the springs which get their water from the moun- 

 tains are stronger and more constant. 



The Knysna forest is chiefly on Table Mountain 



