66 Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 
proportion to what was obtained from their alienation. The re- 
foresting of the Table Mountain range from Tokai to Cape Town is a 
case in point. 
A few years back the Inspector-General of Forests to the Govern- 
ment of India went on a tour through some of the Australian forests, 
and before leaving addressed a pregnant letter to the Government 
of Victoria. What he most insisted on was the necessity of at 
once «demarecating the national forests and rendering them safe 
from alienation, an inviolable national property. JI look forward 
with confidence to the time when the national forests of the country 
will, after the railways, be its most precious possession, its most 
thriving industry. He said mter alia: ‘The forests of a country 
must be looked upon as a capital left in trust for the whole com- 
munity: the interest alone should be consumed. It is easy of 
proof, both by historical evidence gathered from all parts of the 
globe and by the result of modern scientific inquiries, that a certain 
proportion of a country must be maintained under forest cover in 
order to secure the permanency of national progress and prosperity. 
The percentage of forests which it is necessary to maintain varies 
considerably with local conditions, but the fact remains that it is 
easier to deforest the superfluity of forest land than to recreate 
forests where they have been devastated and are found wanting. 
It is consequently a matter of great importance that the Government 
of a new country should make up its mind as early as possible, both 
with regard to the extent of permanent forest reserves and their 
final situation, that the areas selected should be made inalienably safe 
for serious special reasons of State, and that they should be treated 
for the one purpose of permanent retention under forest cover.”’ 
That forests can thrive where agriculture is difficult or impossible, 
one has only to recall the steep, richly wooded slopes of the lofty 
Amatolas, the similarly beautiful forest with its gigantic yellow-wood 
trees in the barren Knysna country, and, perhaps most striking of 
all, the cedar-trees of Clanwilliam, growing on the absolutely bare 
rocks of the stupendous Cedarberg Range; while at Genadendal we 
see an introduced tree, the cluster-pine, hardier than any of the 
indigenous trees, spreading itself self-sown up the rocky mountain- 
side, in spite of fires, drought, hot winds, and climatic vicissitudes 
that are too often the despair of the agriculturist. 
