94 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 



are fast disappearing. Mr Leonard, of Somerset, in reply 

 to a query issued from the Colonial Office in 1804, having 

 remarked that the Yellow-wood tree forms a much less 

 conspicuous element in the scenery than his memory pic- 

 tured it doing some four-and twenty-years before, goes on 

 to say, ' Of other forest trees there used to be an abun- 

 dant supply in the forest that skirts our mountain here, 

 but the large demand that rules in an age of bullock wag- 

 gons for disselbooms and other waggon wood, is sure to 

 clear out any but an inexhaustible supply of Assegai and 

 Iron-wood trees, while the durability possessed by the olive 

 post soon marked it out for the woodman's axe, in procur- 

 ing timber for the ever memorable Hartebest house of the 

 first pioneers j and subsequently the same durability in the 

 nature of the wood caused the continuous destruction of 

 the tree for fencing stakes, when advancing civilisation 

 demanded and gave way to buildings of brick and stone. 



' Yellow-wood trees of any size, as well as Assegai, 

 Olive, and Iron-wood trees are now becoming so scarce 

 here that we may easily predict the speedy extirpation 

 of them from amongst our natural productions ; and, 

 unless human care and culture produce specimens, when 

 those of the kloof and the rivulet have disappeared, the 

 next generation will have to refer to some some botanical 

 collection to see what they are like.' 



About the same time the late Rev. J. W. Pears, the 

 minister of the Dutch Reformed Church at Somerset, 

 previously professor in the South African College, Cape- 

 town, writing to me on another subject, said : ' When 

 I came to the frontier 38 years ago there was grass every- 

 where in abundance, in the plains sweet, and in the 

 mountains sour ; and this, sometimes five or six feet high ; 

 now none, excepting near rivers or on the tops of moun- 

 tains, is to be found. Formerly, also, the mountains were 

 unoccupied, as no one chose to pay for them ; the herbage 

 was abundant ; and the moisture was long detained, so 

 that all the little streams continued to flow through the 

 whole year. Now these mountains were all occupied, and 



