222 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JouRNAL. [1 Man., 1900, 
It is not then surprising that we find Mr. G. H. Davies, a forest ram ee 
Qudeni, S.A., writing as follows in the Watal Agricultural Journal %, 
subject of afforesting the desert, and re-afforesting tracts of South 4 
territory, laid waste by the natives :— 
The inhabitants of a temperate climate and of an island of gentle ¢ 
watered by a rainfall spread over all the seasons, require something mo 
mere precept to give them any idea of the real importance of forestty: 
India, however, the necessity was too obvious to be passed over, and, Ye 
acknowledged, British thoroughness spared neither expense nor care iD the 
lishing there a splendid department of the Civil Service whose work 1 shel 
admiration of the world. But it needed the object lesson fur? fi, 
by conditions the exact opposite of those obtaining in Great Britt 
in a vast continental region whose mountains, mothers of mighty W# 
tower amidst the highest of our globe—feeding great rivers 1 
climate that passes from drought to deluge with an appalling sudé 
ness—to teach the rulers from a favoured isle that by forestry alone d 
the conditions be equalised, the waters controlled and distributed, denudal 
stayed, and the parched plains given the moisture needful to turn them, 7 
feeders of the swarming nations of that tropical empire. Mechanical er 
has done much, but it can never supersede trees. No engineering can do “a | 
forestry can to curb torrential action; to turn nullahs, now dry and noW jan 
races, into streams of nearly even flow the year through; to change 
subject to alternate drought and downpour, into one sufliciently humid # we 
times ; to return to the atmosphere the oxygen burnt out of it. In forest 
may find the clue to the loss of empires more surely than in tales 9 ae, 
forgotten wars. Vast tracts of sand cover Babylon and Nineveh, and many , 
great city of the past, not because the inhabitants were slaughtered an 
Jpiallse overthrown, but because the land was laid waste—the trees Wel 
own. 
The ancient Asiatics were thorough in their destruction, and to the dnt | 
on the great plains forestry was a vital matter; it meant all the diffe a 
between aridity and fertility—between sand and soil. To those, howe 
occupation of mountainous districts enjoying a heavy rainfall, forestry W%* 
so obvious a necessity. Its function is the same in both cases—conserva4 “al 
water—but it might well seem to the natives of hilly countries that the 8° 
their superabundance drained away the better. ‘They would have so many ant | 
that the latter would be continually in the way of their primitive agricl Ks) | 
occupying the only spots their poor implements could work (as with our plac 
and destruction of forest would go on until the land failed the race, 4, 
example of this may be found in the Khanate of Great Bucharia, whit é 
1826, was described by Malte-Brun in his “ Universal Geography” as @ la 8 | 
the richest vegetation and agricultural prosperity. Fifty years later the * in | 
country was a mere desert, owing to “a mania for clearing haying seize th 
the alae & [See Queensland Agricultural Journal, Vol. 1V., Pa 
page 68. e | 
Between these two extremes, Asia and the Western Islands washed bY i }, 
Gulf Stream, comes South Africa, with Natal as a more favoured P% os | 
Ours, however, is not so favoured a land as France is in equality of the Bir its | 
as to moisture; and the recent experience of the European country; hd of | 
courageous and successful rebrosement, at an enormous cost, in TeP™ aor | 
torrential action induced by the destruction of woods, may cause us to CO” ve 
if a little care at the present will not save a huge bill in the future. W°* spe 
come into possession of the country at a critical moment. For generation® 
natives have destroyed the woods, burning the old trees as they cultivate out! | 
them, and using the young ones as poles and wattles at the rate of bon yo 1) 
thousand for each hut. In the steep ravines, however, and wherever he | 
surface is too difficult and stony, patches of woods remain to gu# ng 
springs that, uncontrolled below, are carving the surface with dor 
and so ever increasing the rapidity and force of their summe? 
onto 
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