130 
EARTH ORIGINALLY WOODED. 
undisturbed influences of spontaneous nature, its soil sooner or 
later clothes itself with herbaceous and arborescent plants, and, 
at no long interval, with a dense forest growth. Indeed, upon 
surfaces of a certain stability, and not absolutely precipitous 
inclination, the special conditions required for the spontaneous 
interior of the island [of St. Helena], not to mention scattered groups of 
trees. Darwin observes: ‘During our stay at Valparaiso, I was most 
positively assured that sandal wood formerly grew in abundance on the 
island of Juan Fernandez, but that this tree had now become entirely 
extinct there, having been extirpated by the goats which early navigators 
had introduced. The neighboring islands, to which goats have not been 
carried, still abound in sandal wood.’ ” 
In the winter, the deer tribe, especially the great American moose 
deer, subsists much on the buds and young sprouts of trees ; yet—though 
from the destruction of the wolves or from some not easily explained 
cause, these latter animals have recently multiplied so rapidly in some 
parts of Forth America, that, not long since, four hundred of them are 
said to have been killed, in one season, on a territory in Maine not com¬ 
prising more than one hundred and fifty square miles—the wild browsing 
quadrupeds are rarely, if ever, numerous enough in regions uninhabited 
by man to produce any sensible effect on the condition of the forest. A 
reason why they are less injurious than the goat to young trees may be 
that they resort to this nutriment only in the winter, when the grasses and 
shrubs are leafless or covered with snow, whereas the goat feeds upon buds 
and young shoots principally in the season of growth. However this may 
be, the natural law of consumption and supply keeps the forest growth, 
and the wild animals which live on its products, in such a state of equilib¬ 
rium as to insure the indefinite continuance of both, and the perpetuity 
of neither is endangered until man, who is above natural law, interferes 
and destroys the balance. 
When, however, deer are bred and protected in parks, they multiply 
like domestic cattle, and become equally injurious to trees. “ A few years 
ago,” says Clav6, “there were not less than two thousand deer of different 
ages in the forest of Fontainebleau. For want of grass, they are driven to 
the trees, and they do not spare them. * * It is calculated that the 
browsing of these animals, and the consequent retardation of the growth 
of the wood, diminishes the annual product of the forest to the amount 
of two hundred thousand cubic feet per year, * * and besides this, the 
trees thus mutilated are soon exhausted and die. The deer attack the 
pines, too, tearing off the bark in long strips, or rubbing their heads 
against them when shedding their horns; and sometimes, in groves of 
