Hawke's Bay Herald SATURDAY, MAY 10, 1868.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 12, Issue 943, 16 May 1868, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald SATURDAY, MAY 10, 1868.

The season for plauting is now close at hand, and we would again urge upon our fellow settlers, more especially those residing in the country, the importance of planting upon their laud as many trees as they possible can. We would urge it on the ground of humauity — that the spectacle may no more be seen of a poor horse or other animal, shivering under the influence of a piercing souther, and with no better shelter than that afforded by a wire fence. On the ground, also of picturesque beauty ; and here we would express a hope that, sooner or later, our little town will follow an example set it by Geeloug, and have rows of trees on either side of its principal streets. But, more particularly, on the ground of the important influence upon climate exercised by the multiplication or diminution of trees. We all know how exceedingly dry the seasons here have been for some years back ; and there can be little doubt that the processes of falliug timber and draining swamps, which have been going on without ceasiug, have been a maiu cause of so unfortunate a state of things. Some time since we read a report by Dr. Mueller, F.R.S., the government botanist at Melbourne, in which he shewed that the prosperity of the whole country was mainly dependent on the multiplication of trees. He very forcibly remarks : — In Australian vegetation, the colonists possess the means to obliterate the rainless zones of the globe, to spread woods over their deserts, and thereby to mitigate the distressing drought, and get rid of the fearfully hot and dusty wind which at present brings misery whenever it blows. How much lasting good might be effected by the mere scattering of seeds of our drought-resisting acacias, eucalypts, and casuarinas, at tho termination of the hot season, along any water-course, or even along the crevices of rocks, or over bare sands or hard clays, after refreshing showers ! Even the rugged escarpments of the desolate ranges of Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco might become wooded ; even the Sahara itself, if it could not be conquered, and rendered habitable, might have the extent of its oases vastly augmented; fertility might bo secured again to the Holy Land, and rain to the Asiatic plateau, or the desert of Atacama. — Need we say, after quoting so high au authority, that the first duty of every settler is to plant trees, and the more the better. In due time, the country will reap the benefit, and each individual will share in the general prosperity which could not fail to follow upon such genial seasons as we enjoyed in former years.