442 



Pomona College Journal of Economic Botany 



Caucasus range and not more than one liundred miles away the change in 

 climate and vegetation is greater than that usually seen in a distance of half 

 a thousand miles or more. The central and easterly parts of this Trans- 

 eaucasian region are relatively dry, and here irrigation has long been prac- 

 ticed, but westward towards the Black Sea the annual rainfall increases 

 rapidly until it reaches sixty or more inches near Poti. In this more humid 

 part of the country vegetation is very profuse, the forests being among the 

 densest and richest in the world. In passing it may be mentioned that 

 although this is one of the oldest portions of the civilized world somewhat 

 more than 50 per cent, of the surface is still covered with forests. It would 

 seem tli;it the civilization developed by these people has not rerpiired the 



< l igur. 1-^^. I irhis of tea plants on the Emperor's plantation. 



destruction of the forests, in spite of the fact that the Black Sea ships af- 

 forded every opportunity for an extensive lumber trade. And lest some reader 

 might think that perhaps these forests escaped because they were unknown 

 to the outside nations, I will remind him that here was Colchis, the land of 

 the Golden P''leece, that the ancient Greeks knew more than thirty centuries 

 ago. Here on the river Pharis men lived and toiled and built cities, and 

 from these far-away centuries to the present man has lived here. Yet in spite 

 of this long occupancy of the land there are still great forests standing as 

 they stood three thousand years ago. 



