CHAPTER XL 



THE WOODS TAKE THE FIRST BANK IN THE COMMUNITIES OF 

 THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM— RECIPROCITY OF ACTION AMONGST 

 PLANTS— A COOL ATMOSPHERE PRODUCED BY WOODS— THEIR 

 REMOVAL IS FOLLOWED BY A WARMER, DRIER CLIMATE, AND 

 IS BENEFICIAL IN SOME CASES— WOODS ON MOUNTAINS MUST 

 NOT BE CUT DOWN— PERNICIOUS RESULTS OF THEIR RE- 

 MOVAL IN ITALY— WOODS USEFUL ALONG THE SEA-SHORE 

 WHERE THE COAST IS LOW AND SANDY— CONCLUDING RE- 

 MARKS. 



The plant-covering of the earth is very properly called 

 the Vegetable Kingdom. It is indeed ^ state in the king- 

 dom of Nature, which, like the state under the government 

 of man, is divided into communities of the greatest differ- 

 ence and variety. The orders of plants in the natural 

 system of botany, are a rough draught or attempted sketch 

 of these communities, and among them the woods take the 

 first rank. The magnitude of trees, and the extent which 

 they cover when they form forests, makes them quite a 

 prominent feature in the landscape ; and they are quite as 

 important as their conspicuous appearance would seem to 

 intimate. The woods are indeed the supreme rulers of the 

 plant- world, and the life of the other plants ; and the pros- 

 perity of man himself is, as we shall now proceed to prove, 

 most intimately connected with their existence. 



The woods show us, in the clearest and most direct 

 manner, that the earth would be perfectly uninhabitable 

 if plants did not grow together in communities. Without 

 these natural associations, their life, as individuals, would 



