JARDINAGE. 95 



generally burned annually, and the consequence is that 

 the water has failed. For instance, the mountain behind 

 my house, which rises to the height of 1,756 feet, was 

 covered with high grass and thousands of beautiful bulbous 

 flowering plants and shrubs, and its whole face and 

 offshoots adorned with Yellow-wood or other valuable 

 trees ; now these are all gone ; not a Yellow-wood or other 

 tree worth anything is left, and only a useless growth of 

 bushes occupy their place, and the consequence is that a 

 stream that supplied my garden and some others, runs 

 now only after rain. The whole face of the mountain, if 

 planted with oak, firs, and other useful timbers, might not 

 only be valuable, but again it might protect the water. 

 But almost every year, by the idle and reckless, the moun- 

 tain is fired, and all is destroyed. It is now burning 

 fiercely. In the kloof there still stand the charred stumps 

 of large Yellow-wood trees.' 



Such appear to be the only remains of the forests once 

 flourishing in the neighbourhood of Somerset. 



This may be considered as a third stage of the destruc- 

 tion of forests the final in which they entirely dis- 

 appear. And to this those spoken of as being destroyed in 

 the vicinity of the Gamptoos River are likely soon to 

 come. I am informed that ' the whole of the Crown 

 Forest Reserve and vacant land in the ward of Van 

 Staden's River, which comprises also the Field Cornetzy 

 and ward of Eland's River, is to be disposed of on a twenty- 

 one years 7 lease ; other portions, not of great extent and 

 value, are to be annexed to the properties adjoining them ; 

 and the office of Forest Ranger is to be abolished.' 



Similar results have been seen by others elsewhere. 



In a paper by Lady Verney, in the Contemporary Review, 

 I find the following statement of a generally accepted fact: 

 ' The question of the supply of timber for the future is all 

 over the world becoming very serious ; the sources are 

 gradually exhausted, while scarcely anything is done to 

 repair the waste, except by England and in parts of Ger- 



