Notes. 129 



Mr. E. Stewart, Dominion Superintendent qf Forestry, has 

 just returned from a trip to Europe, which he made with the 

 purpose of studying forest conditions and management in the 

 more advanced countries of the qM world. He visited the 

 scientifically managed forests and the forest schools of France 

 and Germany, and had the opportunity of meeting and discussing 

 forestry questions with some of the leading foresters of those 

 countries, and also Dr. Schlich and Sir Die'trich Brandis in Eng- 

 land. The results of such observations will be of much advant- 

 age to Mr. Stewart in his administration of the Dominion forests. 



The same careful and methodical policy is bejng introduced 

 in our colonial dominions. There the difficulties are sometimes 

 very great, because the havoc Tias been more complete. We try, 

 for example, to reinduqe trees to give back to Southern Tunis its 

 pristinie fertility. Most of it is now a sand desert. What it was 

 ;n Reman times we know by the ruins and the inscriptions. The 

 capital of the South, Suffetula, as it was called, consists now in 

 scattered ruins in the midst of absolute desert. One of the in- 

 scriptions discovered contains a description given by an old Ro- 

 man veteran of what his villa was. He had retired there after 

 his campaigns, and describes the traces, the plots of grass, and 

 the fluent waters, which adorn his retreat — now buried under the 

 shroud of the desert sand. 



The Arab conquest destroyed all the trees there and killed 

 the forest. The ])unishment was not long to follow. Xo forest 

 there. No men. Not long after the conquest, the mischief was 

 already considerable, the land was desolate, and an Arab chrqn- 

 icler, seeing the havoc done, recalled in his book the former timies 

 of prosperity, adding : " But in those days one could walk from 

 Tripoli to Tunis /// the shade." — M. Jusscrand, Ambassador frojii 

 France, in Report of Anieriean Forest Congress. 



The following communication has bevn received from Mr. 

 W. B. Hoyt, of N. B. :— 



" In your annual report for 1904. in a discussion on the dis- 

 trib'/tion of forest seeds, p. 51, Mr. I'ertram makes a remark 



