The Garden in Spring 



unless saved by cultivation, threatened with 

 extermination. So, too, the native junipers 

 are almost extinct, their wood being used not 

 only by cabinet-makers, but as torches. Many 

 of the island trees are becoming very rare from 

 similar causes, notably a lofty olive, with a hard 

 white wood, much in request for the keels of 

 boats. Very few large specimens of the native 

 laurels now remain, as they are in demand for 

 cabinet-making. It is related by the old 

 chroniclers that when the island was discovered 

 it was clothed with dense woods. To clear it 

 for cultivation they were set fire to. The con- 

 flagration is said to have lasted ten years, and 

 on one occasion to have mastered the colonists 

 and driven them to their ships. This story is 

 probably only a poetic way of saying that it 

 took ten years to destroy the primeval vegeta- 

 tion on the ground required for the cultivation 

 of sugar-cane ; and it is quite possible that 

 man's needs in more recent times have had as 

 much to do with extinction of the native flora 

 as this possibly mythical fire. The inner and 

 more inaccessible ravines seem to have escaped 

 both these means of destruction, and in them 

 may still be found a few very ancient specimens 



