64 Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 
grateful cloud it is the province of the meteorologist to study. It 
will be readily seen that only large forest areas will ordinarily 
produce an appreciable effect in this way on the rainfall, and this 
effect is exceedingly difficult to determine by instrumental observa- 
tion. Similarly, the effect of trees in causing “drip” and attracting 
thunderstorms is not easily measured and is usually but partial and 
local. The certain and beneficent action of forest, as we have seen, 
is in arresting the rush of water to the sea and preserving it from 
evaporation. To a country situated as in South Africa, there is here 
a positive and practical gain that bulks largely in considering the 
utility of national forests. 
The way to make national forests the health, wealth, and glory 
of a community is clear. Make them now while the gold and 
diamonds supply the funds, and they will remain with us—a per- 
petual source of public weal, like the forests of Germany, when the 
gold and diamonds are done. Peru made railways in the rich early 
guano days. It is possible to make too many railways, to over- 
stimulate agriculture in a climate of scanty and uncertain rainfall ; 
but a strong forest policy is open to no misgiving. We now spend 
a quarter of a million yearly on imported wood. We shall soon 
spend more. £250,000 yearly at 3 per cent. represents a capital of 
£8,333,300, which is more than one-fourth the National Debt of the 
Colony. . 
Nor is this all: one million people, as we have seen, live directly 
on the forests in Germany; three millions indirectly. Not only are 
we sending one quarter of a million pounds sterling out of the 
country yearly, but we are keeping from us the population that 
would be supported by the expenditure of this money in the country— 
a population that need not be coloured, like the mine labourers, but 
white, as the farmers and the bulk of the wood-cutters at Knysna. 
I hope I have succeeded in showing that national forests are 
worth more to this country than is generally supposed. One hears 
much of fruit-culture. Many of our leading men have put their 
hands deep into their pockets over fruit. One can scarcely open a 
daily paper without some reference to the fruit industry. Young 
men come out from England to seek a fortune in fruit-growing. 
Almost every farm has its patch of fruit trees. I know too much of the 
climates of California and Cape Colony not to believe in fruit-growing 
myself. But after all, what is fruit compared to forestry! Mr. 
Merriman, in his speech of last May to the Horticultural delegates, 
estimated the total value of the fruit produced in Cape Colony at 
£100,000. Our most successful fruit-grower has assured me that 
this is its outside value. Now look at the forest figures. During 
