it to deteriorate both with respect to its 
effects upon the health of man and other 
animals and upon the fertility and pro- 
ductiveness of the soil.” He quotes 
from Marsh’s well-known work on “Man 
and Nature” to the effect that forests 
“within their own limits and near their 
own borders maintain a more uniform 
degree of humidity in the atmosphere 
than is observed in cleared ground”; and 
he further illustrates this point from 
the experience of districts in America, 
where the forests have been cleared 
away: “With the disappearance of the 
forest all is changed. At one season the 
earth parts with its warmth by radiation 
to an open sky, and receives at another 
heat from the unobstructed rays of the 
sun; hence the climate becomes excessive 
and the soil is alternately parched by the 
fervour of summer and seared by the rig- 
ours of winter. Bleak winds sweep 
unresisted over its surface, drift away 
the snow that sheltered it from the frost, 
and dry up _ its scanty moisture.” 
I have cited Marsh only by way of illus- 
tration; for the whole literature of the 
subject is full of evidence of the same 
kind. Careful observation 
years has tended to throw doubt upon 
the extent of the influence on climate and 
temperature once attributed to forests. 
But, on the other hand, there 
be no doubt that the dis 
bush and scrub has in many countries, 
and even in New Zealand, been followed 
by the failing of Springs and the disap- 
pearance of rivulets and streams. In the 
handbook on “Tree Culture in New Zea- 
land,” issued by our Chief Forester, Mr 
TERIA. Matthews, this effect is noted as 
the direct consequence of the efforts made 
by our settlers to clear bush land. The 
experience of every country where ob- 
servations on the rainfall have been car- 
ried out—St. Helena and Ascension, 
Asia Minor and Switzerland, Italy and 
France, California, the West Indies and 
in recent 
seems to 
appearance of 
Australia—all tends in the same direc- 
tion. “The countless ruins of Palestine,” 
says Mr A. Page in a recent issue of “The 
World’s Work.” “the stony hills and de- 
serted valleys, are the result of maltreat. 
ment of the land that once flowed with 
milk and honey. Mesopotamia, one of 
the most sterile countries in the East, 
was once a forested and fertile land, and 
the Euphrates river is now swallowed up 
in the desert. Greece shows a similar de- 
cadence. Sicily, which when covered 
with forests, was the granary of Rome, 
is now entirely deforested, and even when 
undisturbed by earthquakes is a poor ag- 
ricultural country. There are parts of 
Denmark, Bohemia, Hungary and <Aus- 
tria which in modern times have become 
valueless through deforestation. The 
Chinese have ruined great parts of their 
Empire by destroying their forests, and 
they are fast becoming waste places in 
which no man can live.” Evidence of 
this kind might be multiplied. indefinite- 
ly, but this may be sufficient to suggest 
the importance and value of forests in 
maintaining a country’s water supply 
and the danger involved in the cessation 
or diminution of the streams and springs 
on which its fertility and productivity 
so largely depend. 
But this question of the water supply 
is closely connected with another and 
even more important aspect of deforesta- 
tion. Professor Schwappach, in his text 
book on “Forestry,” points out that, 
apart from the fact that forests are con- 
stantly adding valuable organic matter 
‘to the soil, they have a directly beneficial 
effect upon it in other ways:— 
(1) They prevent the sunlight and heat 
from reaching the soil directly, and thus 
searing or burning it. : 
(2) They break the force of the wind, 
and so save loose soil from scattering 
or drifting. 
(3 They reduce the mechanical force of 
heavy rain. : 
(4) They bind together and keep in its 
place soil that would otherwise be 
carried away by floods. 
It is on the last two of these effects 
that I wish more particularly to dwell, 
and I believe that evidence can be pro- 
_ duced on these points that will eonvince 
any intelligent person that the destruc: 
