36 



followed by a much diminished rainfall and a greater aridity. It is probable that the 

 increasing aridity of South Africa is due to the same cause (*). 



ECONOMIC UTILITY OF FORESTS. SUPPLY OF TIMBER. 



It is often assumed that the forests of the globe are of such vast extent that we have 

 no need to fear any diminution in the supply of timber for many a year, and that a 

 laisserfaire attitude would be attended by evil results of no great magnitude. But there 

 is reason to fear that such a view is fallacious. The forests of civilized countries, which 

 are alone sufficiently accessible to provide cheap timber for exportation, have nearly all 

 suffered a very considerable decrease within historical or even recent times, and it would 

 appear that the continually increasing demand for timber can only be met by a continu- 

 ally increasing rate of destruction. It has been proved beyond doubt that some two 

 thousand years ago Europe was densely clothed with forests, the proportion of which 

 has now decreased to a quarter of the land surface. Marsh shows that in both Northern 

 and Southern Europe there are many names of places etymologically indicative of woods 

 which no longer exist. According to Chalmers there are, on the maps of Scotland, a 

 thousand names of places derived from forests which have since disappeared. Roman 

 writers tell us of the great Hyrcinian forest which in Caesar's time covered the greater 

 part of Central Europe, and was computed to be sixty days' journey long and nine broad. 

 Gaul was then almost continuously wooded ; in 1750, Mirabeau estimated the woodlands 

 of France at seventeen million hectares ; in 1860 they were reduced to eight million. 

 Even so late as the eleventh century Adam of Bremen writes of Denmark, which is now 

 almost treeless, as horrida sylvis. Asia Minor, Greece, Spain, Italy, the Canary 

 Islands, possessed once magnificent forests, of which there remain nothing more than a 

 tew rare vestiges. At present, most of the forests of Europe are subjected to sound 

 systematic treatment, but there is evidence to show that the destruction of forest in 

 Russia and some of the other Continental countries still proceeds at no inconsiderable 

 rate. Many of the forests cannot be protected by the State, because they are private 

 property. This explains why, in France, the extent of woodland, which reached 

 22,687,710 acres in 1874, is reduced to 20,740,914 acres in 1882**. In Russia, the 

 forests which covered 527,426,510 acres in 1872 were reduced to 425,564,842 in 1881**, 

 a decrease of 20 per cent, in nine years. 



In the United States, the forests, estimated to have covered, two centuries ago, 95 

 per cent, of the whole area, now barely cover 25 per cent. Their destruction is still very 

 rapid. Forest fires destroy on an average over ten million acres a year. In the Census 



*Vide J. C. Brown's Hydrology of South Africa, and Water Supply of South Africa, 

 ** Agricultural Returns, 1888. 



