142 PRACTICAL ARBORLCOLE URE 
Compare the monstrous business of European countries, where vast quan- 
tities of fuel are required to move trains, steamers and manufactories, with the 
Koreans’ method of taking home the winter fuel on the backs of a few oxen, 
or carried by men; the scrubby brush being gathered to burn in the rude 
ovens beneath the mud floors. 
There may be coal mines beneath Korea as extensive as those of any 
other country, but the inhabitants have not made serious efforts to discover 
and appropriate the coal. So idleness and national degeneracy have pre- 
vented it from being utilized, if it should exist. 
The grinding mill, where two women are preparing the grain for house- 
hold use, is characteristic of the country where no advance has been made for 
centuries, while other nations have forged ahead in the march of progress. 
The supreme efforts of nine men are required to manipulate one common 
shovel. This is a common scene in Korea. Yet, one ambitious laborer from 
any of the countries of Europe will perform double the service of these nine, 
and do it with perfect ease. 
The water gate, at Seoul, will give a very fair impression of the poverty 
of the country in forests—a few pines are the only trees in view. But, then, 
we have some few localities in the United States of America which were 
formerly heavily timbered, but which can now boast of no more trees than 
this Korean picture shows. It is possibly true that ‘‘coming events cast their 
shadows before.” 
What connection, we are again asked, have these illustrations with the 
forests? 
The country without forests must obtain its revenue from other sources; 
and if these be lacking, there can be no revenue except at the expense of the 
national honor and individual humiliation. The amount of a nation’s revenue 
determines its standing among nations and its general prosperity. The pros- 
perity of a nation governs the employment and wages of its people, and upon 
this depends their happiness. The country without forests, not having the 
means of employment for its inhabitants, necessarily drags them downward; 
first, into idleness, then to satisfaction with what nature, unaided, provides, 
making no effort toward improvement. and a life of degradation and poverty 
results. 
Willows, pine trees, birch, beech, maple and cedar are mentioned as 
occurring in natural forests in a small way, which goes to show that the 
country was formerly well wooded. The same careless indifference which 
characterizes Americans with regard to the forests and trees has been very 
pronounced in Korea during the years gone by, with the result that the better 
forests were long ago destroyed. 
The tropics, it will be said by critics, show vast forests, and vet with indo- 
lent and unprogressive natives. But equatorial regions, although nature 
supplies them with rank vegetation, presents other conditions which have 
agreater control. The torrid climate overcomes all other influences. de- 
stroying man’s energy. Yet, Korea is in a temperate region, identical in 
climate with that of Japan. But Japan preserves her forests, and takes the best care 
