FOREStAL LITERATURE. 2l6 



difficulty in the way of the developement of these capabili- 

 ties, arising from a reckless destruction of forests and of 

 forest products which was going on, and a progressive 

 desiccation of the climate, accompanying or following the 

 destruction of forests and the burning of herbage and bush 

 in connection with agricultural operations and pastoral 

 husbandry. And I knew not then, nor do I know now, of 

 a single work published in England from which I could 

 then have procured information in regard to the treatment 

 required by aboriginal forests, to secure their conservation 

 and improvement, excepting Forests and Gardens of South 

 India, by Dr Cleghorn, then Conservator of Forests in the 

 Madras Presidency; The Forester, by Dr James Brown ; 

 the Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum, by Louden ; 

 and English Forests and Forest Trees, an anonymous 

 work published by Ingram, Cooke, & Co., London. But 

 none of these supplied the information I required. 



' Contrast with this the richness of continental languages 

 in literature on such subjects. I have had sent to me lately 

 Ofversight of Svenska bkogsliteraturen, Bibliografaka 

 Studieren of Axel Cnattingius, a long list of books.and papers 

 in Forest Science published in Sweden ; I have also had 

 sent to me a work by Don Jose Jordana y Morera, Ingenero 

 de Montes, under the title of Apuntes Bibliographic 

 Forestafe, a catalogue raissone of 112(5 printed books, MSS. 

 &c., in Spanish, on subjects connected with Forest Science. 



' I am at present preparing for the press a report on 

 measures adopted in France, Germany, Hungary, and 

 elsewhere, to arrest and utilise drift-sand by planting them 

 with grasses and trees ; and in Der Europaeische Ftug sand 

 und seine Kuttur, von Josef Wessely General-Domaenen-Inspektor, 

 und Forst-Academie-Direktor, published in Vienna in 1873, I 

 find a list of upwards of 100 books and papers on that one 

 department of the subject, of which 30, in Hungarian, 

 Latin, and German, were published in Hungary alone. 



'According to the statement of one gentleman, to whom 

 application was made by a representation of the Govern- 

 ment at the Cape for information in regard to what suit- 



