182 FOBEST CULTUBB AND 



transit of the mineral treasures would not always 

 exist, its discovery would be certain to lead to the 

 occupation of the country and to the extension of 

 pastoral colonization, until an increasing population 

 and augmented conveniences for traffic could turn 

 mineral wealth, however distantly located, advanta- 

 geously to account. But how vastly might not any 

 barren tracts of the interior be improved, and how 

 many a lordly possession be founded, by patient in- 

 dustry and intelligent judgment ! Storage of water, 

 raising of woods, dissemination of perennial fodder- 

 plants, will create alone marvellous changes ; and for 

 these operations means are readily enough at com- 

 mand. Even the scattering of the grains of the com- 

 mon British Orache (Atriplex patulum), an annual but 

 autumnal plant, would, on the barest ground, realize 

 fodder for sheep ; and the number of plants which for 

 such purpose could be chosen are legion. The storage 

 of rain-water might, in any rising valley, be so effect- 

 ed as to render it, simply by gravitation, available 

 for irrigating purposes. 



As a curious fact, it may be instanced that, in some 

 of the waterless sandy regions of South Africa, the 

 copious naturalization of melon -plants has afforded 

 the means of establishing halting-places in a desert 

 country. On the sandy shores of the Great Bight, 

 and also anywhere in the dry interior, such plants 

 might be easily established. The avidity with which 

 the natives at Escape Cliffs preserved the melon- 

 seeds, after they once had recognized the value of 

 their new treasure, holds out the prospect of the grad- 

 ual diffusion of such vegetable boons oyer piucb ms^t- 

 tle4 pountry, 



