1 June, 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 487 
lands, and destroying numerous houses. In 1865 the peasants began planting 
trees in its wide torrent bed. They raised over 200 little dikes or ridges, and 
planted them with quick-erowing trees and shrubs, whose roots so consolidated 
the earth, that now there is practically no torrent at all. After heavy rains the 
water, of course, rises; but it no longer whirls down sand and shingle and huge 
masses of rocks with it.* 
These, then, are the two great uses of forests:—One, to increase the 
rainfall ; two, to prevent it from coming in devastating, desolating floods, 
instead of in fertile showers. These two are of great importance in Queensland, 
and require to be looked into more fully by our councillors and legislators. 
Will tree planting bring rain to rainless districts? I fancy I hear some 
reader ask. Yes; I answer, it will. Trees draw the moisture from the air, 
and cause it to rain, and I have already shown that there is more rain in a 
timbered district than in a treeless one. “But I will give two examples of the 
presence of trees causing the rainfall to increase. Egypt is almost what might 
be termed a rainless land, for its rainfall is very small. Years ago, Mehemet 
Ali, the Ruler of Egypt, ordered a great number of mulberry-trees to be planted 
in the country. Since his time, millions of these trees have been planted. 
Their presence actually brought rain, and increased the scanty rainfall, and the 
plantations here and there along the Suez Canal are producing the same effect. 
In the forest of Montant, in the department in the Aude in France, a stream 
used to turn a whole string of fulling-mills. But the land was disforested, and 
the whole of the trees were cut down. At once the water supply became so 
irregular, that the mills were stopped for a considerable part of the year. The 
mill and Jand-holders at once replanted the forest, and as soon as the trees grew 
up a little, the water supply was so improved, thatthe mills were enabled to run 
again all the year round. Again, in the Black Mountain District, in the same 
province, observations were made in two valleys—one wooded, the other treeless. 
After rain, there was much less water from the first, but it lasted much longer, 
and did not all run away in a flood as did that in the other. There can, there- 
fore, be little doubt that whilst we shall never be able to get rid of floods, or to 
prevent them, their violence can be greatly lessened by letting the water down 
gradually if a stop is put to the dreadfully wasteful denudation of our forests 
and scrub lands which at present exist in Queensland. 
Some may argue: “ Butwe must cut downthe trees to get the land for cultiva- 
tion.” Just so. I do not-advocate that no trees should be felled, for as we may 
have too much of a good thing, so we may have too much forest. If we look at 
the past history of some of the European countries, we may see this :—Gaul (the 
present France), in Julius Cesar’s time, 1,900 years ago, was far colder than 
what it is now, because both it and what is now Germany were, to a great 
extent, one vast forest. In those days, the river Rhine used to be regularly 
frozen hard enough for troops to march across. From the same cause England 
and Italy were colder than they are now. Too many trees are nearly as bad as 
none at all. Western Africa and portions of South America are pestilential, 
because the soil is so saturated, owing to the thick forests, and consequently 
small evaporation, that it can hold no more, and the rains cause marshes, which 
last from one rainy season to another. 
What I advocate is forest conservancy whereby the following different 
matters should be attended to :— : 
The wanton wilful destruction of our useful timber trees should b 
stopped. 
That a system should be adopted by which only certain trees should be 
cut down, and that this should only include such as are of no value 
commercially. 
That noxious trees should be cut down and replaced by valuable species. 
The planting of indigenous timber trees on our timber reserves and waste 
lands. 
*Tf the forest and scrub were allowed to grow thicker and heavier along our river banks it 
would lessen the evil effects of the flood waters which so frequently occur in this colony—J.W.F. 
