twenty-fourth of all this land is under the administration of the State, evidences of an abuse of the forest are seen in the consumption of the deciduous leaf and change of climate caused by the denudation of the mountains. The Elbe, in its rise and fall, low waters and inundations, points to the extinction of the forests in those localities along its course where it should be allowed to remain undisturbed in primeval wildness. In Hungary, forest devastation has prevailed to a large extent, and its effects on climate and irrigation have been seriously felt. No adequate system of forestry exists, and although an average of twenty-three per cent. of surface is covered with woods, the distribution is so unequal-leaving portions of territory entirely bare, while in others there is an excess of forest that all the evils ensue from such an inequality that every other country on the globe suffers and is doomed to suffer under, from the operation of like causes. When dwelling on the subject of our own forestry, the example of Hungary will appeal to our future legislation, and force upon our attention the need of a system of forest culture in order to preserve a proper distribution of woody surface. Boehm, a writer on Hungarian forestry, relates that when Sir Francis Drake, in 1586, introduced the potato, its successful and general cultivation in that country superseded the production of grain to such a degree as to cause a dearth of straw; recourse was had to the deciduous leaf of the woods, and the consequence was such an impoverishment of the soil, as to cause the extinction of large tracts of forests from want of the nourishment the decomposed leaf affords. In all its bare districts, Hungary suffers from drought and the disappearance of its springs during the summer, and the same story of droughts and floods, the result of deforestation, is told here that we hear of in all other countries.

In the Tyrol, no efficient measures have ever been taken to preserve and perpetuate her woodland territory, and, as a consequence of the disrobement of her mountains, agriculture has been arrested, and fertile fields made barren. Cold winds sweep across the naked hills, and exhausted springs and streams alternate with inundations that devastate the valleys. It is presumed that during the past century, more than one-third of the productive land of the Tyrol has been destroyed by floods resulting from the causes we are dwelling upon. As late as the year 1848, Styria abounded in forest land, which composed about two-fifths of its entire surface; but, as the

Austrian government affords no protection to the forest, wood is becoming scarce in that country, and the other accompanying evils of forest devastations are being felt. The Karst, a tract of country, four to six miles wide, by thirty-four miles long, bordering the Adriatic, north of Trieste, was at one time, while under Roman Government, supposed to have been well timbered. But depredation hinders the propagation of new forests, and wide-spread evils on soil and climate are the consequence. Attempts at restoration have been made and repeated in various localities; but the poverty of the government and an inefficient system have failed to clothe the Karst in its original verdure.

The same tale of forest extinction and its consequences is heard from Dalmatia, where constant depredation and theft place hindrances in the way of an effectual forest system. Large quantities of trees are felled for the purpose of exportation, and ere long the entire disappearance of the forest of earlier centuries will ensue.

In Switzerland the philosophy of forestry and the climatic influences of woodland has not yet taken root. The same apathy that characterizes most other nations on this subject prevails here, and the timber of the mountains is felled with that indifference to the future, that leads their proprietor to believe that wherever trees have been hewn nature has provided for a perennial growth. The consequence of the general want of knowledge and of scientific legislation on the subject, is to be recognized in a wide-spread denudation of forest in all those localities where springs should exist to feed fertilizing streams; where woods should shield the valleys from storms that sweep across the mountain tops, and protect all the important passes and Alpine pathways from the fatal avalanche. The progress of the spoliation of her forests has extended throughout the last two centuries. Saussure, in his "Voyages dans les Alpes," acquaints us with the fact that formerly the lakes Neufchatel, Biel, and Murten constituted one large basin; but since the surrounding land was cleared, their waters have fallen, and they have separated into distinct lakes. Formerly the vicinity of Bern, Alpnach, Appenzell, Graubündten, the valley of the Grisons, the Splugen Pass, and the country Geneva, were distinguished for their dense forests. These have become almost extinct, and no means whatsoever have been taken towards their restoration. This romantic Alpine land, however, is not so entirely disorganized on

the subject of forest legislation as to leave her woodlands a total sacrifice to the rapacity of gain, for we find that in Canton Waadt, the capital of which is the beautiful city of Lausanne, there are six forest districts, each of which is under the supervision of an officer. In the Cantons Aargau, St. Gaul, Graubündten, Tessin, Luzern and Freiburg, similar organizations exist, although they are under too mild a discipline to confer much positive benefit. Many indications incline us to believe, however, that the strong innate love of the Swiss people for their wood-clad mountains will lead them to adopt, ere long, some more general system of forest laws, having in view the replanting of all denuded districts, and the restoration of that leafy verdure which once adorned all the Alpine mountain heights."

No portion of continental Europe has more cause for lamentation over the loss of its forests than Italy. In every respect it might and should be the garden of Europe; yet large portions of its once fertile domain have become impoverished by the loss of that admirable protection which nature guarantees to the culture of the soil-the forest. A system of forestry has been maintained by the state from early periods, during Roman ages, and all through the medieval epoch. But intervals of disorganization will ever appear in the history of a people, and during these times the woodlands became a prey to devastation. The poverty of princes, state debts and the requisitions of war, all draw upon the resources that are found in timber and fuel, and thus a succeeding generation finds itself bereft of one of the essential blessings that flow from a prolific soil and salubrious climate. Along the western coast of Northern Italy extending from Genoa to the Roman States, nearly the whole chain of Apennines is divested of forest. In Sardinia and Sicily, once reputed to be the granaries of Italy, springs and streams have been entirely desiccated by the loss of the trees that shaded them from the solar heats, and the productive resources of these respective countries have suffered in proportion. From the peculiar character of soil in certain localities, the destructive effects of forest denudation are seen in well-worn ridges along mountain sides—vast gullies are torn out by storms and deluges of rain and forever rendered unfit for any human purpose. The traveler among the Apennines is often struck with this phenomenon, without being aware that its cause lay in the extinc2 Forest enactments were at one time so rigid in Switzerland, that the death penalty was imposed on those who felled trees in certain woods.

tion of the woods on all the mountain slopes. The project of reinvesting the great Campagna of Rome with its lost forest has awakened attention in her public councils; but the great difficulty has interfered here which will always intervene when forest preservation and restoration come up as a question of state and national policy, viz : where is the separation between the interests of the individual and those of the state to take place? or who shall define the limits of each? The Campagna possesses great fertility of soil, and being adapted to the culture of the oak, as is proved by the existence of a grove of evergreen oaks, called the grotto of Egeria, near Aricia, as well as pine, evidenced by those growing near the tomb of Pompey -its redemption from the blight that now lies upon it in its malarious climate could be accomplished by some magnificent scheme of forestation. Then would the foliage of its oaks and pines waft their oxygenated stream of life to the fever-stricken citizens of Rome.

The island of Sicily has almost become a waste from the effects of forest devastation. It has scarcely a stream that lasts through the summer, and few perennial springs. The soil has suffered deplorably for want of sufficient irrigation, and the denudation of the hills and mountains, even to their summits, has exhausted that great reservoir of nature and impoverished the land.

Although Greece with her thirteen species of oak presents many a verdant grove, and tracts of woodland in which trees of noble growth throw out their ample branches and yield a grateful shade to a parched soil; yet the ancient classic land, in common with Asia Minor, has been shorn of its original forests, and its characteristic feature is represented in steppes and unproductive barren wastes, and a new aborescent growth can scarcely be awaited. Turkey possesses the Balkan mountains, whose northern side is covered with a heavy growth of timber, while their southern declivity is, comparatively, bare. Portugal has experienced a like denudation of its woodland surface. Being under no control of government and in the hands of individual proprietors and communities, the forest has had no protection and no measures have been resorted to with a view to its restoration. Of Spain it may be said that at one time one-fifth of its territory was forest; but by repeated reduction of woodland surface the proportion has dwindled to but nine per Originally Spain was covered with dense forests; the immigration of Phoenician colonies in search of silver in the Pyrenees

augmented the population, and the destruction of her forests ensued. In different portions of this land noble forests still exist, in which are seen the oak, beech, fir and chestnut in towering beauty, and there remains a wealthy supply of timber adequate to all the wants of the country in its present condition. But, on the whole, the destruction of the useful woods has been indiscriminate and improvident; and Spain, like all other countries, has suffered under the abuse of that universal law that renders both soil and climate contingent on the extent of forest territory.

In studying French forestry, we find that prior to the year 1750, the kingdom possessed a woodland domain that embraced one-third of its whole surface. Between 1750 and 1788 the great destruction of timbered land took place, and a still greater diminution ensued during the time that elapsed between 1788 and 1792, when the government disposed of its woods to private purchasers. After the serious loss of timber that now began to be felt in France, conservative measures were adopted, and up to the year 1825 French territory embraced 20,250 square miles of forest-less than one-third, however, of what it was in 1750.3 The origin of all this waste is to be traced to causes of an arbitrary nature. In the year 1862, two venerable forests, in the vicinity of Paris, of 5,000 and 9,000 acres respectively, were hewn to the ground, and large quantities of naval timber, cut by the commission of the French Marine, were left for want of transportation to decay in the woods. Southern and western France are entirely denuded, and most of the northern provinces are in no better condition.

To show the effects of forest devastation we are told that, in the Department of Ardeche and Loire, districts comprising 41,000 acres have become entirely unfruitful, and turf and sod have been substituted for better fuel. Along her southern borders France is exposed to storms sweeping across her mountains more fiercely than ever, since shorn of their ancient woods.

From the time that Provence became a prey to forest devastation, a desolating atmosphere and colder seasons assailed the extensive olive groves, and great destruction took place among them. To the same cause may be traced a degeneracy in the general culture of both the orange and olive tree throughout France. In several departments drought and inundations alternately have become the

3 Present area of forest 1634 per cent.