3° 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



attribute their present nakedness to the war-fires of 

 the Danes. The traveller will remember that the 

 Grecian islands, which in classic times were richly 

 wooded, have suffered a corresponding denudation. 



Turning now to the pages of Vaupell, we are made 

 acquainted with changes which other causes have 

 induced. Simultaneously with improvements in 

 agriculture, which began about a century ago, the 

 uncultivated forest has developed itself with a 

 luxuriance before unknown ; and along with this 

 richer growth, many phenomena in the life and 

 mutual relation of the trees have conspicuously 

 presented themselves to view. Young beechwoods 

 are suppressing the ancient progeny of oaks ; alder- 

 mosses, which for centuries enjoyed exuberance of 

 health, have been seized with such mortality, that 

 Lolland, once proud of its alder-mosses, as the best 

 of cattle-pastures, can now scarcely supply alder 

 for a pair of wooden shoes, while ash, on the contrary, 

 extends itself and usurps the decayed stumps. Aspen, 

 formerly common in openings of the woods, becomes 

 rarer every day. But most remarkable is the density, 

 scarcely conceivable for Denmark's soil and climate, 

 which the more fertile forests have attained. In the 

 former century, it was greatly complained that some 

 of the woods had been quite uphewn ; that others 

 had become miserably thin and open, grass widely 

 extending, and trees disappearing ; while now the 

 case is reversed, young beeches are supplanting the 

 grass. Formerly a proprietor only felled a tree when 

 needed for himself or his dependants, and when trees 

 were removed it frequently happened that none grew 

 in their place ; now the beechwoods usually grow so 

 rank that they must be thinned, and timber also is 

 felled for sale. 



This change is attributable to the allotment of 

 lands, and the abolition of the common-rights of 

 forest-pasturage in 1805. The aim of his work being 

 in part to show how trees multiply and mature them- 

 selves when freed from cattle, before treating of the 

 present state of the Danish forest, Dr. Vaupell glances 

 at its treatment in former times, that it may be seen 

 how pasturage came to exert so great an influence on 

 the rankness of its growths, and on the extension and 

 form of the trees. 



In earlier times mast, not timber, was the most 

 valued product of the forest ; acorns and beech-nuts 

 supplied nourishing food for large herds of swine, 

 such as may yet be seen in the great oak forests of 

 Servia ; and when Gilpin wrote, they might be seen 

 on a lesser scale, in our own New Forest, munching 

 acorns with approving grunts, and on the sounding of 

 the swineherd's primitive horn, rushing home, with 

 many a squeal, to supper and bed. For centuries 

 the flesh of swine was in most parts of Europe the 

 most common and esteemed of animal food ; doubt- 

 less Gurth and Wamba in old Sherwood enjoyed 

 many a rasher of bacon of their own feeding ; and 

 though Friar Tuck preferred to fatten on venison 



pasty, a brother monk of Denmark, quoted by 

 Vaupell, thus expresses, in the language he held 

 sacred, his devout affection for pork : 



"Sine carne suilla non est vita; 

 si est, non est ita." 



" There is no life sans flesh of swine, 

 Or if there is, it is not mine." 



Jonge, another Dane, remarks that of all "meat- 

 wares, nothing is dearer to the Zealand peasant than 

 bacon ; he could without tiring eat the rank fat to 

 every meal." Heaven itself, without bacon, would 

 have been no heaven to the old Scandinavians ; every 

 day in the grand hall of Valhalla, countless heroes 

 who had died in battle, after enjoying the invigorating 

 exercise of morning's fight, with boundless slaughter 

 and reslaying of the slain, sat down, no worse for the 

 fray, to a hugh feast of this delectable dish, which 

 came, smoking and savoury upon the board. 



During the Middle Ages the Danish peasants 

 pastured their swine not only in the woods pertaining 

 to their respective communities, but also in the great 

 unappropriated boundary forests ; holding that these 

 were commonalities, and that they had the right, not 

 only of pasturage there, but also of cutting firewood 

 and timber. Canute the Great was one of the first 

 kings who began to dispute these claims ; and much 

 strife between prince and peasant ensued. But by the 

 end of the Middle Ages, through the growing power 

 of the nobles, the peasant had sunk from the position 

 of owner of the land he cultivated to that of mere 

 tenant. No peasant, but only the nobles and the 

 Crown, might own forest ; yet the peasants retained 

 the .right of sending their cattle into the so-called 

 common-forests ; a practice which continued till near 

 the beginning of the present century, with great 

 increase of usage since the peasants had ceased to be 

 proprietors, and consequently with increased detri- 

 ment to the forest growths. 



As in the Middle Ages, so, during the period of 

 privileged country seats (16th, 17th, iSth centuries), 

 mast continued to be the forest's most important _ 

 product ; and not only neighbouring peasants, but 

 many far distant towns and villages sent swine to the 

 great forests. For instance, every autumn, when 



" Lash'd by furious squalls, 

 Bright from their cups the rattling treasure falls," 



Lubeck and Hamburg sent droves of swine to the 

 forests of Holstein, and even of Slesvig, there to 

 grunt and grow fat. The payment per head raised a 

 considerable revenue, in consideration of which the 

 Crown had been induced to appropriate the great 

 forests and deprive the peasants of the right of free 

 pasturage within them they had formerly enjoyed. 

 What swinish multitudes munched and crunched, and 

 grubbed, and grunted under the oaks and beeches of 

 these great old forests, may be learnt from Rantzan, 

 who tells that in 1590, which appears to have been a 

 good year for mast, 63,000 swine fed in six of the 



