Cape National Forests. 59 
‘To many a farmer free fuel means the saving of the scanty 
indigenous trees on his farm—the beauty, the shade, the water, and 
the shelter for stock, produced by these trees. To every one who 
has the means we would counsel the planting of an acre of 
blue-gum copse near the house or homestead. It will render the 
surroundings more healthy and pretty. Under favourable circum- 
stances it will cost about £7 (planting 5 feet by 5 feet), and will 
repay its cost twice over the first year. It may be allowed to grow 
untouched for ten to twelve years, and then cut over gradually 
during the next ten years; and so on, in perpetuity, one-tenth 
of an acre being cut over and ten tons wood harvested, each 
year.” 
The Uitvlugt Forest Reserve is the Epping Forest of Cape Town. 
Situate within four miles of the heart of the city, it comprises 8,000 
acres in one solid block, stretching from behind Rondebosch across 
to Maitland and northwards along the line of railway. It should be 
the future playground of the citizens of Cape Town, like the beautiful 
forests dotted round Paris. Already it is the only large area remain- 
ing unfenced near Cape Town. Game is increasing, and the money 
beginning to come in for shooting licences will enable us to do more 
towards preserving the game. It is the only spot in South Africa 
where re-foresting has been conducted on a large scale by the in- 
expensive process of simply ploughing the land and scattering the 
seed broadcast. rom six to eight tons of cluster-pine seed are used 
yearly in this work, and it is easy to imagine oneself in Germany as 
one walks for half a day over acre upon acre of young pines, 
stretching over the rolling flats as far as the eye can reach, and 
bounding the horizon on every side. And we have here what 
they have not got in Germany—long stretches of the estate covered 
with Acacia saligna, the golden wattle of West Australia, bursting 
into blossom. The wind blows loaded with the sweet scent, the 
colouring is most vivid, and with the backing of Table Mountain 
and the hum of the city in the distance, the shadows and sunshine 
on the mountain and the soft spring air, I know of no prospect more 
enchanting in this beautiful Cape Peninsula. 
Though cluster-pine closely grown in dense plantations will be 
quite a different wood from that of the sparsely grown firewood tree, 
and be largely used for house-building, as is indeed now the case at 
Genadendal, there is one employment for which the coarsest and 
roughest cluster-pine timber can always be used. I refer to railway 
sleepers. Lately we imported wooden sleepers. Now we are 
importing costly iron sleepers, and misusing for sleepers the 
Knysna yellow-wood, that ought to go into flooring boards. No 
