CONSERVATION AND REPLENISHMENT. 195 



where calls the ' cattle line.' This always runs parellel to 

 the surface of the ground, and is determined by the height 

 to which domestic quadrupeds can reach to feed upon the 

 leaves. In describing a visit to the grand-ducal farm of 

 San Rossore near Pisa, where a large herd of camels is 

 kept, Chateau vieux says : ' In passing through a wood of 

 evergreen oaks, I observed that all the twigs and foliage 

 of the trees were clipped up to the height of about twelve 

 feet above the ground, without leaving a single spray 

 below that level. I was informed that the browsing of the 

 camels had trimmed the trees as high as they could reach/ 

 LTDLLIN DE CHATEAUVIEUX, Lettres sur I Italic, p. 113. 



" Browsing animals, and most of all the goat, are con- 

 sidered by foresters as more injurious to the growth of 

 young trees, and, therefore, to the reproduction of the 

 forest, than almost any other destructive cause. Accord- 

 ing to Beatson's Saint Helena, introductory chapter, and 

 Darwin's Journal of Researches in Geology and Natural 

 History, pp. 582, 583, it was the goats which destroyed the 

 beautiful forests that, three hundred and fifty years ago, 

 covered a continuous surface of not less than two thousand 

 acres in the interior of the island [of St. Helena], not to 

 mention scattered groups of trees. Darwin observes: 

 * During our stay at Valparaiso, I was most positively 

 assured that sandal- wood formerly grew in abundance on 

 the Island of Juan Fernandez, but that this tree had now 

 become entirely extinct there, having been extirpated by 

 the goats which early navigators had introduced. The 

 neighbouring islands, to which goats have not been carried, 

 still abound in sandal-wood.' 



" In the winter, the deer tribe, especially the great 

 American moose-deer, subsist much on the buds and 

 young sprouts of trees ; yet though from the destruction 

 of the wolves, or from some not easily explained cause 

 these latter animals have recently multiplied so rapidly 

 in some parts of North America, that, not long since, four 

 hundred of them are said to have been killed in one sea- 

 son, on a territory in Maine not comprising more than one 



