WASTE OF THE WORLD'S FORESTS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3362, 12 January 1884, Page 2

WASTE OF THE WORLD'S FORESTS.

When the forests of such a country as Cyprus were destroyed, said Mr Tbisleton Dyer, in a discussion in the British Society of Arts, it was like a burned cinder. Many of the West Indian Islands are in much the same condition, and the rate with which the destruction takes place when once commenced is incredable. In the island of Mauritius, in 1835, about threefourths of the soil was in the condition of primeval forests, viz., 300,000 acres ; in 1879 the acreage of wood was reduced to 70,000; and in the next year, when an extra survey was made by an Indian forest officer, be said the only forest worth speaking about was 35,000 acres. Sir William Gregory says that in Ceylon, the eye, looking from the top of a mountain in the centre of an island, ranged in every direction, over an unbroken extent of forest. Six years later the whole forest had disappeared. The denudation of the forests is accompanied by a deterioration in the soil; and the Rev. R. Abbay, who went to Ceylon on the eclipse expedition, calculated, from the percentage of solid matter in a stream, that one-third of an inch per annum was being washed away from the cultivated surface of the island. In some colonies the timber was being destroyed at such a rate as would soon lead to economical difficulties. In Jamaica nearly all the timber required for building purposes has already to be imported. In New Brunswick, the hemlock-sprnce is rapidly disappearing, one manufacturer in Boiestown using the bark of one hundred thousand trees every year for tanning. In Demerara, one of the most important and valuable trees, the greenheart, is in a fair way of being exterminated. They actually cut down small saplings to make rollers on which to roll the large trunks. In New Zealand, Captain Walker says he fears that the present generation will see the extermination of the Kauri pine, one of the most important trees. All these facts show that this is a most urgent question, which at no distant date will have to be vigorously dealt with.