AUGUST 203 



yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city. . . . 

 The multitude of the city shall be left; the forts and 

 towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, 

 a pasture of flocks.' More colloquially, Horace had the 

 same idea in view when he penned his Naturam expellas 

 furcd, tamen usque recurret. 



This line of thought was started yesterday while I was 

 Avaiting for a train at the Mansion House station of the 

 underground railway surely, of all places, that where the 

 pitchfork has been applied most rudely to nature. Beside 

 one of the rails I noticed a green flutter of leaves, which, 

 on closer inspection, turned out to be a seeding wych elm 

 about nine inches high, and therefore probably in its 

 second year of growth. Here was Nature engaged in her 

 eternal work of reconquest. This little seed, whether 

 wind-wafted or dropped from some citizen's bundle of 

 country greenery, had rooted itself in the cinders of the 

 track, and, were all traffic to cease on that line to-morrow, 

 would grow into one of the mightiest of our native trees, 

 scattering its progeny ' upon all the houses of joy in the 

 joyous city.' 



Can't we take the hint ? Here are all those who under- 

 stand the matter, warning us that, while the consumption 

 of timber throughout the world is increasing at a pro- 

 digious rate, the visible supply is vanishing. Every 

 first-class power in Europe France, Germany, Austria, 

 even Russia is husbanding its forests, deriving much 

 wealth from them, and laying up store for the future. 

 Many of the smaller states are doing the same. Belgium 

 derives an annual income of 4,000,000 sterling from 

 1,700,000 acres of forest. Even Spain takes care of her 

 cork woods. And as for America, whose forest resources 



