ILLUSTRATED GUIDE. 143 



this tree plays in nature, and the reasons that exist for 

 planting it. 



These lessons in forestry shonld bear, in the first place, 

 on the importance of our woodlands. The child should 

 be shown that, it behoves us to labour with all out 

 strength to preserve our forests, if we wish to keep up 

 the fertility and prosperity of our cultivated lands. 

 Describe to him the distresses of those countries that are 

 without wood, and he will learn to regard the trees as 

 his friends, to guard them from injury, and to take due 

 care for them. Next, he should be shown the methods to 

 be pursued in restoring the forests where they have been 

 injured, and where ruin threat 'ns them. Once let him 

 feel the importance of preserving the woodlands from 

 damage, and of keeping them in good condition, and 

 there will be no difficulty in convincing him of the 

 necessity of re-planting the sites where wood no longer 

 exists. Arrived at this point, the child, thus instructed, 

 will conceive a taste for planting, and study the prin- 

 ciples of that art of his own accord, if the elements of 

 the study are placed in his hands. He will desire to 

 acquire the art of forestry as a practical gain, and in two 

 or three years, you will have made the child a devoted 

 ally of the forest, a model forester. In after year , the 

 generation to which he belongs will reap the benefit of 

 the ideas you have inculcated, and will regard the plant- 

 ing, or management of a grove of trees on his land, as 

 one of the indispensable parts of the scheme of every 

 farmer. 



To attain this end, the intervention of government 

 must be secured. It should take pains to procure an 

 elementay work on forestry for distribution among the 

 pupils of our schools ; facilitating thus the difi'usion of 



