142 PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 



Compare the monstrous business of European countries, where vast quan- 

 tities of fuel are required to move trains, steamers and manufactories, with the 

 Koreans' method of taking home the winter fuel on the backs of a feu oxen, 

 or carried by men : the scrubby brush being gathered to burn in the rude 

 ovens beneath the mud floors. 



There may be coal mines beneath Korea as extensive as those of any 

 other country, but the inhabitants have not made serious efforts to discover 

 and appropriate the coal. So idleness and national degeneracy have pre- 

 vented it from being utilized, if it should exist. 



The grinding mill, where two women are preparing the grain for house- 

 hold use, is characteristic of the country where no advance has been made for 

 centuries, while other nations have forged ahead in the march of progress. 



The supreme efforts of nine men are required to manipulate one common 

 shovel. This is a common scene in Korea. Yet, one ambitious laborer from 

 any of the countries of Europe will perform double the service of these nine, 

 and do it with perfect ease. 



The water gate, at Seoul, will give a very fair impression of the poverty 

 of the country in forests a few pines are the only trees in view. But, then, 

 we have some few localities in the United States of America which were 

 formerly heavily timbered, but which can now boast of no more trees than 

 this Korean picture shows. It is possibly true that "coming events cast their 

 shadows before." 



\Yhat connection, we are again asked, have these illustrations with the 

 forests ? 



The country without forests must obtain its revenue from other sources; 

 and if these be lacking, there can be no revenue except at the expense of the 

 nationalhonor and individual humiliation. The amount of a nation's revenue 

 determines its standing among nations and its general prosperity. The pros- 

 perity of a nation governs the employment and wages of its people, and upon 

 this depends their happiness. The country without forests, not having the 

 means of employment for its inhabitants, necessarily drags them downward : 

 first, into idleness, then to satisfaction with what nature, unaided, provides, 

 making no effort toward improvement, and a life of degradation and poverty 

 results. 



AYillows, pine trees, birch, beech, maple and cedar are mentioned as 

 occurring in natural forests in a small way, which goes to show that the 

 country was formerly well wooded. The same careless indifference which 

 characterizes Americans with regard to the forests and trees has been very 

 pronounced in Korea during the years gone by, with the result that the better 

 forests were long ago destroyed. 



The tropics, it will be said by critics, show vast forests, and yet with indo- 

 lent and unprogressive natives. P.ut equatorial regions, although nature 

 supplies them with rank vegetation, presents other conditions which have 

 a greater control. The torrid climate overcomes all other influences, de- 

 stroying man's energy. Yet. Korea is in a temperate region, identical in 

 climate with that of Japan. But Japan preserves her forests, and takes the best care 



