582 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



naturally, without any human assistance. This forest, which has 

 ceased to exist in the present day, is what by artificial means we now 

 desire to replant. 



The way in which we are working and the theory on which our 

 work rests I will try to explain for the benefit of countries similarly 

 situated, such as Australia, California, &c, which possess a climate 

 and a rainfall not very unlike those of Chile. 



Without doubt one of the most interesting problems which has 

 been solved in Chile of late years has been the possibility of replanting 

 with suitable forest and fruit trees not only the flat dry lands but 

 also the principal mountain ranges situated round the valleys or on 

 the coastal range. 



This problem, which was of easy solution in the c outhern part 

 of the country, where rain is abundant at all seasons, presented great 

 difficulty and was long unsolved in the central and northern districts 

 of the Republic, where the rainfall is confined to four or fiv. months 

 in the winter, and for the rest of the year the soil remains absolutely 

 dry and in almost complete sterility. 



From the first years of work in my trial grounds at " Santa Ines " 

 my attention was called not only to the shrubs growing on the dry 

 hills of Chile, but also to the existence of dwarfed specimens of other 

 species of trees growing under the shelter of clumps of thorn. In such 

 positions I found small plants of Maytenes (Maytenus Boaria), of 

 Quillai (Quillaju Saponaria), and of many others. On the other hand 

 history and tradition tell of the existence of large specimens and 

 prove that there .have been on the dry hills some kinds which now are 

 extinct. And if, as must have been the case, all this vegetation had 

 arisen spontaneously without the assistance of man, one can but 

 conclude that what past centuries have done it is possible to repeat 

 at the present time. 



One cannot help also observing, in passing over the dry hillsides of 

 different parts which are given over to the breeding of cattle, that it is 

 difficult to find even small plants of any species of trees except where 

 they are sheltered by other plants or protected by obstacles of various 

 sorts, such as very precipitous hills or small patches of soil between 

 inaccessible rocks &c. Therefore one arrives at the conclusion that 

 one of the obstacles, if not the principal one, to the spontaneous increase 

 of the trees must be the cattle, which when eating the grass also eat 

 up the seedling trees growing amongst it. for formerly the number of 

 cattle was much smaller than now, and at one time there were none. 

 Trees could then grow without let or hindrance and formed large woods, 

 which the Spanish discoverers and conquerors of Chile found in the 

 country, and the disappearance of which we now so greatly lament 

 without taking the trouble to replace them. 



If one examines what takes place during the months of winter, 

 when the dry soil of the hills is being moistened by the rains, one 

 notices a curious fact, viz. the existence in July and August of small 

 seedling trees of many different species close down on the soil and only 



