i68 
NATURE NOTES. 
at Miinden ; but, as a rule, I believe English students are sent 
to France for a course of training there. 
In England the subject is little studied ; there the proportion 
of forest land is small — only 4 per cent. All of it, with a few 
important exceptions, belongs to private individuals, and the 
royal forests are managed by a department of the central 
government. In the British Islands it is of comparatively little 
importance, with their moist climate ; almost any pranks can be 
played in the way of cutting down trees -without doing serious 
damage. Indeed, in England, in many places there are far too 
many trees in the hedge-rows, which damage one another and 
the grass and crops beneath them. How good a thing it would 
be if the surplus could be cut down and burnt as fuel in London 
instead of coal, and so mitigate the yellow-fog nuisance ! I 
would, however, call attention to what our President, Sir John 
Lubbock, says about the New Forest (see Nature Notes, 
1894, P- i 33 > 
The United States of America have learnt a bad lesson from 
us in the matter of forestry. An article in the Cosmopolitan for 
July, 1892, shows clearly how sadly the teachings of this science 
have been neglected. The experience of a not very large island 
will not avail in a vast continent, and the writer shows how a 
sandy district, when once denuded of trees, becomes a spreading 
sore in the land ; the sand driven by the wind burying adjacent 
forests, so that the tops of the trees only are visible, and 
threatening destruction to towns and villages. In England at 
times there has been clamour to bring every square yard of land 
under tillage ; and no doubt the same cry will be raised by 
ignorant people in other lands. But nature may not be defied 
with impunity ; and I trust the Americans will take due warning. 
For them to destroy their forests is as suicidal as for a man to 
live on his capital — a day of reckoning must come. It is satis- 
factory to know that a commission has been appointed in 
America to collect evidence and report on this. 
Greece neglects forestry, I hear. But now let us turn to 
Russia. There I understand there is no thorough system of re- 
planting, factories are established and remain in situ so long as 
there is wood to burn in the furnaces ; they then are moved on. 
This continues, so that vast tracts of land have become bare of 
trees, the land, having no shelter from the sun’s rays, burns up, 
and great navigable rivers have run dry. The mischief is so 
serious that German statesmen apprehend that the climate of 
their own country will suffer. But the matter goes further than 
this ; with the interior of Russia becoming a waste, the popula- 
tion must move somewhere, and this will be an excuse for the 
Muscovite bear extending his arms, according to traditional 
policy, around the shores of the Black Sea. I am glad, however, 
to find that in Russian Turkestan at last people are beginning to 
waken in this matter, and re-planting has commenced. 
This much should show of what importance the science of 
