THE TROPICAL A.aRICTJLTURIST. [Feb. 1, 1982, 
the French forest officers in the forest of Mondon, 
near Laneville. It ia a level forest of about 5,000 acres 
sitaate on a low platezoa formed of alluvial saud 
gravel and pebbles. Eleven sound-holes were bored, 
in 1899, six in the forest and five outside. The 
water level was found to be lower in the forest by 
6 -to 64 inches during the season of active growth. 
This result confirms the Russian obsersfations and 
aocords with the known facts concerning the action 
of forests in drying up swamps and stagnant sab- 
soil waters. 
Nevertheless it wonld be a great error to jump 
to the conclusion that plains forests always and in 
all countries lower the level of subsoil waters. It 
has in fact been shown by Mr. Ribbentrop that 
near Trichinopoly wells, 6 to 10 feet deep inside the 
forest, held water throughout the dry season, whilst 
the river beds and wells, 15 feet deep outside, were 
dried up. Each locality must be studied under its 
own conditions. In a general way it may be said 
that plains forests render service of various kinds ; — 
(1) They dry up swamps and malarious places, 
as, for instance, the Laudes, the Sologne, the Pon- 
tine marshes, and many others. 
(2) They suck up from great depths water which 
is otherwise not utiliaable, and cause it to again 
oircnlate in the atmosphere where it forms fresh 
rain. 
(3) They do not injure the springs, since there 
are none in level plains where man is obliged to 
have recourse to irrigation. They may lower the 
subsoil water level to a degree which is seldom 
serious if the rainfall is enough to be of any prac- 
tical use to the crops. 
(4) They cool and moisten the air and render 
showers more frequent daring the growing season. 
Mountain Fokests. 
A rainfall chart bears a great general resemblance 
to a contour or relief map, the more the hills, the 
more the rain. In reality the rainfall is more com- 
plicated. All mountain chains show rain maxima, 
and these maxima are very generally proportionate 
to the elevation. There is more rain at 6,000 feet 
than at 4,000, more at 4,000 than at 2,000, and so 
on. Even small elevations suffice to attract an 
appreciable maximum. Wooded mountains are still 
more effective, especially in the summer months. 
Monntaiu forests are mostly coniferous, and conifers 
exercise an influence even more powerful than that 
of broad-leaved forests. A forest is always oon- 
vered by a great layer of moisture which is there 
none the less, though it is not visible as mist. 
Whence comes all this vapour ? Is it due to eva- 
poration from the leaves, or is it produced by some 
action of the millions of pointa of the pine needles ? 
Science cannot tell, bat the effect is certainly not 
due to transpiration alone. Transpiration is indeed 
leas active in conifers than in broad-leaved species, 
and it would consegnently be expected that the 
former would give rise to a smaller layer of invi- 
sible mist than the latter, bnt the contrary is the 
case. The cause mast therefore be sought in the 
soil or in some other unknown factor. One cause 
may be the soil, bat another is surely to be found 
in the greater portion of the rainfall that is inter- 
cepted by conifer crowns. It was shown in France 
that in 1876 the conifer forests intercepted and 
restored to the atmosphere over 100,000 cubic feet 
more m ater per acre than the broad-leaved forests. 
Other years have given even greater differences, 
and there are no means of making exact measure- 
ments, but there is no doubt that wooded monn- 
taina attract more rain than bare ones. 
In all Europe, Spain is the country that gets 
least rain- Notwithstanding the great mountain 
chains running up to 10,500 feet in Grenada, Mnr- 
oia, dec, the rainfall of July and August is not 
half an inch. If these mountains were wooded in- 
stead of being absolutely bare, the South-east of 
Spi^iQ ^gnld not B^^^ox bo mach frojo drought, and 
th€f country would not hjive had to deplore the 
disastrous floods produced in Murcia by the Segura. 
Spain is at last awake to the fact., and has under- 
taken a series of reboisement works, an accouut of 
which was read at the ioternational Coogiess of 
Sylviculture of 1900 in Paris by M. Ricardio Co- 
dorniz, Chief Engineer thereof. There is plenty 
of moisture in the sea breezes, but nothiug to 
condense it on to the hnt mountains. In the moun- 
tains the rainfall is divisible into the same kinds 
of fractions as in the plains, with this difference, 
that the proportion of surface flow, being zero in 
the plain, becomes considerable on the mountain. 
The quantities a, I, d, e, may first be examined. 
The quantity a has not been directly determined, 
and the plains results cannot be quite applicable 
on account of the preponderance of snow, and the 
great differences of intensity and distribution. The 
evaporation from the soil surface b must be less 
than in the plains, because the temperature becomes 
lower as the altitude increases. For the same reason 
the water fixed in or evaporated by the plants, e. 
is also less, as may be verified by the proportion 
of ashes. The growing season is shorter and heat 
less great. Consequently the transpiration is less 
and the quantity of organic matter formed nnnually 
per acre is smaller. At Aschaffenburg (400 feet) a 
thousand beech leaves will cover about 35 square 
feet, while at 4,000 ft., near the upper limit of the 
species, ihe same number of leaves will only cover 
about 9 square feet. The percentage of ashes and 
the total weight are also less, being 4"03 per cent, 
for beech and 3"58 per cent, for spruce, against 
9'91 and 10'19 respectively. Even the grass at 
high levels contaihs one-half less ash than in the 
valleys. — Indian Forester. 
(To ie concluded. 
THE FERMENT OF THE TEA LEAF, AND 
ITS RELATION TO QUALITY IN TEA. 
( Continued from page 452 ) 
EXTRACTION OP THE FERMENT. 
Their discovery in the present instance was doubt- 
less much delayed by the presence of the large 
amount of tannin in the tea leaf, which makes it 
difficult, if not impossible, to extract the ferment 
unless special means are used to previously removes 
this tannin. My final method was as follows ; — A 
known quantity of leaf (ID grams of fresh or 6"6 
grams of withered) was ground up to a pulp, and 
then hide powder (5 grams) was added and the 
mixture thoroughly ground together. This hide pow- 
der has the faculty of removing the tannin from 
the liquid in which it ia present. When a known 
quantity of water was added, therefore, the tannin 
having been removed from solution by the hide 
powder, the enzyme was allowed to exude into the 
liquid. After standing for two hoijrs the whole mass 
was pressed through cloth, and all the extraotable 
part, at any rate, of the ferment was obtained in 
the liquid thus squeezed out, Oij the addition of 
alcohol the enzyme was deposited as a slimy mass, 
which on being again dissolved in \Vater and filtered, 
gave a clear liquid containing the ferment required. 
If it waa wished to determine its quantity use was 
made of the fact that on addition of " guaiacum 
resin tincture " a blue colour waa produced, and by 
measuring the intensity of this blue colour the re- 
lative quantity in two similarly prepared solutions 
could be ascertained. Further it was found that all 
the enzyme thus extracted was by no means equally 
active, and that it could be divided into two parts 
one of which gave the blue oxidation product with 
"gaai»cum resin" alone, and the other only in 
presence of a small amount of hydrogen proxide 
la this report I have called the former of thes 
active enzyme," and the whole present, includin 
