I'ravers. — On the greed Floods of Fehruary, 1868. *?? 



heaviest. In the next place, the surface vegetation of all those portions of 

 the country in question, which could be used for depasturing purposes, had 

 been systematically burnt over, year after year, in order to encourage a 

 fresh growth for the use of the stock. And, moreover, the treading of the 

 surface by depastured animals tended still further to harden it, and cause it 

 to contract and crack in under the combined influence of the sun and 

 wind. It is easy, therefore, to conceive that after any exceptionally great 

 rainfall the main rivers which drain the districts referred to must become 

 powerful engines for mischief, and are well calculated to make and leave 

 indelible marks of their action, especially where their waters overspread a 

 cultivated country. 



Some years ago, I brought under the notice of the members of the New 

 Zealand Institute (in a series of lectures) the desolating effects of torrents 

 such as those which rise in and flow from our great mountain districts, owing 

 to destructive changes occasioned by man's agency ; but, although the evils 

 I pointed out have been recognized and publicly commented upon, both in and 

 out of Parliament, no attempt has been made to check the continuance of 

 the acts which have brought them about. It is, no doubt, true that 

 legislation has proved ineffectual to prevent the progress of such evils in 

 older countries, but this is chiefly owing to the facts that the entire soil is 

 vested in private persons, and that every proprietor will, as a rule, insist 

 upon his right to fell his woods, and otherwise deal with his property 

 in such manner as he thinks most consistent with his pecuniary 

 interest, and that whether the result be injurious to others or not. But in 

 a country like this, where the State has the possession and control of 

 nearly all the forests which clothe the mountain sides, it is its imperative 

 duty to retahi that possession and control, and to provide severe punish- 

 ment for acts calculated to produce evils of the kind referred to. The 

 revenue derived from the demise of the great tracts of beech forest, which 

 are frequently included within the limits of depasturage areas, is as nought 

 when compared with the enormous damage which must result to the State 

 from its destruction, destruction, moreover, which is rarely confined to the 

 tracts comprised within the demise itself. I have seen thousands of acres 

 of such forest wantonly burnt, and within a very short period afterwards 

 nearly the whole of the loose soil has been washed from the cleared sur- 

 face, leaving nothing behind but bald mountain ridges, rocky declivities, and 

 steep earthy banks, furrowed by deep ravines usually filled, during rains, 

 with torrents of mud and gravel. In Europe and America, the desolation pro- 

 duced by such causes has already been very great, and, in the older continent, 

 millions of money have been spent in the regions of the Alps, the Pyrenees, 

 and the Apennines, in attempts to prevent a continuance of the physical 



