FORESTS IN THEIR RELATION TO RAINFALL. 219 



the average rainfall over the whole colony, 1889 to 1894 inclusive, 

 was 24-7 per cent, above the average of all years." 



Mr. T. Kidston, a gentleman of much experience, states, 

 "I entirely dissent from the opinion that forest destruction 

 diminishes rainfall. « I have been through Upper and Lower 

 Canada, Nova Scotia, and the New England States of North 

 America, where the greatest amount of timber-cutting has taken 

 place in the world's history, in a like time, and yet the rainfall 

 statistics show that during the last sixty years the rainfall has 

 slowly, yet continuously risen, and one of the most eminent 

 meteorologists (Prof. Marsh, from memory), after a life-long study, 

 has recorded his opinion "that rainfall is not increased or diminised 

 by anything that man has done, but by some great cause, external 

 to the earth" In this western 1 country, if ridden over, a fortnight 

 after a fall of 2 or 3 inches of rain, it will be found soft and boggy, 

 if ringbarked, but the adjoining unringed country will be compara- 

 tively firm and sound. In the latter (green timbered country), 

 the enormously increased evaporating surface of the leafage, com- 

 pared with the area of the plot occupied by the tree, has carried 

 the moisture off into the air, which is still retained in the soil 

 among the dead ringbarked timber, and the grasses are nourished 

 long after the soil among the live trees is parched and dry. The 

 main cause of the water disappearing more rapidly from rolling or 

 hilly country now than formerly is the solidification of the soil by 

 the trampling of stock, more especially sheep. In Western Queens- 

 land, or any new country, before being stocked, the surface was 

 soft and spongy and a large part of the rainfall sank directly into 

 the soil. Now, when trodden down and hardened by stock, the 

 water more readily runs off, and so tends to form creeks and 

 water-holes, which did not formerly exist. The sheep also trod 

 into the damp soil the pine seed which formerly perished on the 

 surface, or was swept into the rivers by heavy rains. Hardening 



1 "Bingbarking in Western New South Wales," Agric. Gazette, N.S.W. 

 November, 1894. 



