142 



THE AGBICULTUBAL JOURNAL. 



a force of Boers was drawn within a mile 

 or two of tlie Qudeni forest by a party of 

 scouts, persumably sent for the purpose. 

 The enemy was in command of the dis- 

 trict, postal commuuicalinii cut off, 

 and a store but a couplu ul iiules from 

 the bush was looted. 1 was advised by 

 the katirs to hide in the forest, but did 

 not thiidc it worth while. The Boers 

 showed a wdiolesome respect for the maiii, 

 biisli, whieh could cover the nujvements of 

 nundjers of scouts, and be held against 

 them by a handful. We who lived close 

 to it M-ere quite safe from molestation^ 

 while the nearness of the bush to the 

 Intingwe road gave us a means of com- 

 inuuication with Eshowe that the enemy 

 could nut prevent. 



Let us suppose, however, that a forest 

 was hel<l liy Boers in the path of a British 

 column. ^Yould the former have a 

 great advantage, or would forest not 

 deprive them of the very advantage 

 which enal)les them to fight regular 

 troops at all ? The possession of cover 

 while the soldiers are in the open seems 

 a necessity of Boer warfare. This con- 

 dition would only exist at the commence- 

 ment of the attack upon the outskirts of 

 the Inish. Then would ensue a 

 state of things that only regular 

 discipline could cope with. Unable to 

 see many yards in any direction, or to be 

 sure of the p(.)sition of friend or foe, amid 

 the din of musketry and the cracking of 

 branches, the Boer would realise that 

 he might be outflanked before he knew it. 

 Unless he retired \ ery rapidly the dis- 

 ciplined soldiers — trained to act a-' a 

 single machine — would have surrounded 

 him and his. In fact, it is bnrd to imagine 

 that Boers, or any other undrilled men, 

 would attempt to hold forest at all after 

 its cover had been gained by regular 

 troops. However harassing hunting 

 tactics may be, cohesion and subordina- 

 tion are required, as this war proves, to 

 conquer a country or to hold one, and in, 

 forest, even to circumvent game, hunters 

 are obliged to close up their ranks and 

 adopt a more military style of attack 

 than in the open. To fight soldiers they 

 would have to abandon their isolated 

 methods, and become soldiers themselves. 



Substitute kafirs for Boers, and the only 

 ditTerence in the result would probably be 

 that the former, with savage stupidity, 

 would cling to the illusive protection of 

 cover, and be roped in and be killed or 

 captured by regular troops. 



The only conclusion we can come to, 

 then, seems to be that, to hold the country 

 lor order and civilization, we shouhl 

 afforest it— that tree-planting is as civil- 

 ising from the military point of view as 

 it is from the economic. While, how- 

 e\er, the military critic from Britain 

 might concur in this, he might tell us 

 that the afforestation of such a wilderness 

 as is ^'atal, for instance, is too large an 

 undei taking for practical considera- 

 tion. In this he would be chiefly 

 influenced hv his knowledge of the slow 

 growth of trees in England. Fresh from 

 Eurojje, he could hardly realise that, in 

 iess tfiiin a decade, most of the barren 

 surface whicli extends over the greater 

 part of the Colony could l)e covered with 

 dense ]:)lantations of wattle, and other 

 ra))id exotics, if the inducement to the 

 hind-owners was strong enough. Regular 

 forest trees could be ].)lanted in succession 

 if tlie permanency of the work was en- 

 sured bv law, and I endeavoured in the 

 is.-.ue of' the Journal for the 16th March, 

 fOOi), to show that a schenu; for the 

 afforestation of Natal was quite practic- 

 able. Possibly a subsidy in money would 

 have to be added, but even if that 

 amounted to twenty per cent, upon the 

 private funds spent m actual planting, 

 such expenditure could be defended as 

 absolutely necessary in the interest of the 

 Colony as a whole'. The military value 

 of forest may be easily expressed by the 

 statement that it favours discipline, but 

 the civil value is more important still, 

 Climatic amelioration, supply of timber 

 and small wood, and the final subjection 

 to conti'ol of the veld fires go to make it 

 up. And there are other advantages as 

 well. 



The niilifary aspect should, however, 

 be carefully studied, as the result may be 

 to dispel the time-honoured connection 

 between forest and freebooter under 

 modern condiiions with long-range rifles. 



