118 for:est culture and 



vitality, and what mortal will measure the share of 

 delight enjoyed by any organism ! Why should even 

 the life of a plant be expended cruelly and wastefully, 

 especially if, perhaps, this very plant stood already in 

 youthful elegance, while yet the diprotodon (a wom- 

 bat of the size of a buffalo) was roaming over the for- 

 est ridges encircling Port Phillip Bay — when those 

 forest ridges on the very place of this city were still 

 clothed in their full natal garb. Do not 'assume that 

 I lean to transmutation doctrines ; or that to my un- 

 derstanding there is an uninterrupted transit from 

 the thoughts which inspire the mind to the faculties 

 of animals and to the vitality of plants ! Yet that 

 individual life, whatever it may be, which we often 

 so thoughtlessly and so ruthlessly destroy, but which 

 we never can restore, should be respected. Is it not 

 as if the sinking tree was speaking imploringly to us, 

 and when falling wished to convey to us its sadness 

 and its grief? Like the nomadic wanderer of the 

 Australian soil passed away before us, so I fear most 

 of the traces of our beautiful and evergreen forest 

 will be lost ere long. 



. . . " It is a goodly sight to see 

 Wliat heaven has done for this delicious land ; 

 What flowers of fragrance blush on every tree. 

 What glad'ning prospects o'er the hills expand I 

 But man 'would mar them with an impious hand." 



BtSOH. 



Beyond the plain utilitarian purposes of our forests 

 (some of which I endeavored briefly to explain), and 

 beyond all, the important functions which the woods 

 have to perform in the great economy of Nature, they 

 possess still other claims on our consideration, such as 

 ought to evoke some feeling of piety toward them, 



