MAN AND NATURE. 275 



of mankind. Finding 'tongues in trees/ he allows 

 them to speak somewhat too loudly on their own be- 

 half, and to suppress the claims of those cereal crops 

 and pastures which the industry of man is seeking in 

 so many places to substitute for them. 



In truth, this relation of forests to climates and 

 other conditions of the earth in which human interests 

 are involved is a matter hardly to be reached by gene- 

 ral maxims. To gain anything like fair practical results 

 it must be made a question of countries and localities 

 of the extent and relative proportion of surface thus 

 occupied of the character of the forests themselves 

 of the character of the country at large, whether 

 mountainous or level, near to the sea or distant from 

 it of the nature of the rocks and soil on its surface 

 and of those various incidents of local climate which 

 belong to other natural causes. The practical question 

 is one widely different as applied to the forests of Scan- 

 dinavia, and to those woods of the Apennines, in 

 Southern Italy, the extirpation of which has doubtless 

 contributed, with other causes, to defertilise and de- 

 populate the valleys of that region very different, 

 also, as applied to the interminable forests of Upper 

 Canada or New Brunswick, and to the residual masses 

 of wood in New York and Pennsylvania. We may 

 add, as further example, that timber growing on hills 

 or steep acclivities, and that of plains, whether marshy 

 or arid, can never be brought in illustration of any 

 equal or similar influence on the physical conditions of 

 a country. Every region has its particular aptitudes, 

 and a single theory can in no sense be applied to all. 



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