FOREST CULTURE 



AND 



A LECTURE 



(Third of a Series) 

 UeUvered toy EXjIj^WOOD COOPBR, 



KOTEUBEB 26th, 1875, BEFOBE THE SAKTA BaBEABA COLLEGE ASSOCIATION. 



" The presence of stately ruins in solitary deserts is 

 conclusive proof that great climatic changes have 

 taken place within the period of human history, in 

 many eastern countries, once highly cultivated and 

 densely peopled, but now arid wastes. 



" Although the records of geology teach that great 

 vicissitudes of climate, from the torrid and humid 

 conditions of the coal period to those of extreme cold 

 which produced the glaciers of the drift, may have in 

 turn occurred in the same region, we have no reason 

 to believe that any material changes have been brough t 

 about, by astronomical or other natural causes, within 

 the historic period. We cannot account for the changes 

 that have occurred since these sunburnt and sterile 

 plains, where these traces of man's first civilization 

 are found, were clothed with a luxuriant vegetation, 

 except by ascribing them to the improvident acts of 



