A\Iilorial Miscellany. 6V 



The ruthless destruction of forests is attracting attention in the right 

 quarter. Dr. Hawks, at a meeting of the Geographical Society, made 

 the following pertinent remarks : 



" One of the serious etiects of a total destruction of the forests and 

 woodlands in any country like this, i-s that barrenness is likely to en- 

 sue. Palestine, once well-wooded and cultivated like a garden, is now a 

 deseft — the haunt of Bedouins ; Greece, in her palmy days the land of 

 laui'el forests, is now a desolate waste ; Persia and Babylon, the cra- 

 dles of civilization, are now covered beneath the sands of deserts, pro- 

 duced by the eradication of their forests. It is comparatively easy to 

 eradicate the forests of the North, as they are of a gregarious order — one 

 class succeeding another ; but the tropical forests, composed of innumer- 

 able varieties, growing together in the most democratic union and equal- 

 ity are n^ver eradicated. Even in llindostan all its many millions of 

 population have never been able to conquer the phoenix-life of its tropical 

 vegetation. Forests act as regulators, preserving snow and rain from 

 melting and evaporation, and producing a regularity in the flow of the 

 rivers draining them. When they disappear, thunder-storms become less 

 frequent and heavier, the snow melts in the first warm days of spring 

 causing freshets, and in the fall the rivers dry up and cease to be naviga- 

 ble. These freshets and droughts also produce the malaria which is the 

 scourge of Westerm bottom-lands. Forests, although they are at first an 

 obstacle to civilization, soon become necessary to its continuance. Our 

 rivers, not having their sources above the snow line, are dependent on 

 P0REST3 FOR THEIR SUPPLY OF WATER, and it is essential to the future pros- 

 perity of the country that they should be preserved." 



A writer in the Gardners' Chronicle^ makes some remarks on the ripen- 

 ing of seeds. He observes : 



" In the first place it is necessary to ascertain what is meant by ripeness. 

 Some say fruit is ripe when it is ready to fall ; others require the pericarp 

 at least to be dried and the albumen to be completely hardened ; others 

 again allow fruit to be ripe when the seed is so far advanced that it can 

 be made to germinate. This is ripeness- ir^ a botanical sense, and is the 

 only sense in which the word can be used with precision. The period for 

 gathering does not depend on ripeness ; for example, the Olive is either 

 gathered or allowed to fall, according to the purpose for which it is wanted. 

 Grapes are gathered when they are more or less ripe, according to the 

 object the grower has in view, the results expected from fermentation, and 

 the composition of the must, so as to suit the taste of his customers. In 



