164 Essays. 
lighted either by the Maoris—where there are any Maoris—or by the 
colonist, to increase the extent of his pastures, the vegetation is soon 
reduced to the grasses, ferns, and those other families of plants which main- 
tain their ground, though annually scorched. 
By a process of this sort it is reasonable to suppose that the forest has 
been cleared away from the great breadth of the eastern and interior por- 
tions of the South Island. Groves of trees and even forests are still met 
with there ; but they occur in localities which favour the above hypothesis. 
For where they now exist, the surface is either so broken and mountainous 
as to be worthless for occupation; or they are surrounded by swamps and 
running water; or, as in the southern portions of the country, the climate 
is so humid as to be unfavourable to the spreading of bush fires. Proceed- 
ing, for instance, from Cape Campbell southwards, the country is treeless 
until the ground begins to rise rapidly towards the flanks of the Kaikoura 
Mountains, the seaward aspect of which is clothed with forest. The lime- 
stone downs which skirt the coast to the south of the Kaikouras are entirely 
without timber. On the Canterbury Plains a few groves survive, surrounded 
by swamps. The ragged surface of Banks Peninsula is almost equally 
divided between forest and open country, the former, however, chiefly 
occupying the hollows and moister portions. Proceeding still further south, 
for a distance of 200 miles, no timber to speak of is met with until we reach 
the promontory which contains the harbour of Otago, where a broken 
surface and the prevalence of rain have combined to preserve a noble 
breadth of forest. To the same cause the wooded ranges which border the 
coast between the Clutha and the Mataura appear to owe their existence, 
while the picturesque groves and masses of wood which are sown broadcast 
over the fertile plains of Southland still live, I should say, by virtue of 
the superior dampness of the soil and the corresponding humidity of the 
climate. 
While the characteristic feature of the eastern half of the South Island 
of New Zealand is a grassy surface, now feeding several millions of sheep, 
that of its western mountains and sea-board is almost unbroken forest. 
Of the character of that forest at the level of the sea I have had but limited 
means of judging; but in the interior, and more especially at the higher levels, 
one genus of trees, the Fagus or birch of the colonists, occupies the ground 
to the exclusion of almost everything else, and impresses its peculiar physi- 
ognomy upon the landscape. In the Provinces of Nelson and Marlborough, 
with whieh I am more especially aequainted, I should say that of those 
portions clothed with wood, certainly nineteen-twentieths are covered with 
s she derent varieties of Fagus. It appears to be, as in the Fuegian Islands, 
T | i tree of = "eec A. fringe of land bordering the somis, 
