*8 ARREST OF PHYSICAL DECAY OF NEW COUNTRIES. 
in the mean time, the American continent, Southern Africa, 
Australia, and the smaller oceanic islands, will be almost the 
only theatres where man is engaged, on a great scale, in trans¬ 
forming the face of nature. 
Arrest of Physical Decay of New Countries. 
Comparatively short as is the period through which the 
colonization of foreign lands by European emigrants extends, 
great, and, it is to be feared, sometimes irreparable, injury has 
been already done in the various processes by which man 
seeks to subjugate the virgin earth ; and many provinces, first 
trodden by the homo sapiens Furopce within the last two 
centuries, begin to show signs of that melancholy dilapidation 
which is now driving so many of the peasantry of Europe 
from their native hearths. It is evidently a matter of great 
moment, not only to the population of the states where these 
symptoms are manifesting themselves, but to the general 
interests of humanity, that this decay should be arrested, and 
that the future operations of rural husbandry and of forest 
industry, in districts yet remaining substantially in their 
native condition, should be so conducted as to prevent the 
widespread mischiefs which have been elsewhere produced by 
thoughtless or wanton destruction of the natural safeguards of 
the soil. This can be done only by the diffusion of knowledge 
on this subject among the classes that, in earlier days, subdued 
and tilled ground in which they had no vested rights, but 
who, in our time, own their woods, their pastures, and their 
ploughlands as a perpetual possession for them and theirs, and 
have, therefore, a strong interest in the protection of their 
domain against deterioration. 
Forms and Formations most liable to Physical Degradation. 
The character and extent of the evils under consideration 
depend very much on climate and the natural forms and con¬ 
stitution of surface. If the precipitation, whether great or 
small in amount, be equally distributed through the seasons s 
