632 lion. Ivor ChnrcMl Guest [May 21, 



limited, and timber had only a local value. Moreover, it was hard 

 to cut and reduce to convenient shapes and sizes with the primitive 

 tools which our forefathers possessed ; so it came about that only 

 those lands that were actually needed for the purposes of agriculture 

 were cleared. Further, it was actually the policy of the Norman 

 kings to protect and increase forests because they harboured the deer 

 which they loved to hunt. Thus it came about that, until genera- 

 tions comparatively recent, there was wood and to spare of all the 

 sorts that are indigenous to our climate, and notably of oak and ash, 

 elm and beech. A few of these ancient trees are still left in parks 

 and chases. Many of them are huge pollards, whereof in bygone 

 ages the tops were cut every forty or fifty years to serve as firewood, 

 where sea-borne coal was not olDtainable. Perhaps you would like to 

 see a couple of specimens ? One of them, a famous oak, still grows 

 in Sherwood Forest ; and another, a yew from Crowhurst Church- 

 yard in Surrey, believed to be the largest in the world : at any rate, 

 it has a girth of 33 feet, and very likely was a seedling a thousand 

 years or more ago [two slides shown] . 



Now if Great Britain was so well stocked, imagine the state of 

 other lands. Whole provinces in Europe were green with trees. 

 Caesar, if I remember right, tells us something of the woodlands 

 of Germany, and, indeed, of Britain. Strabo, too, wi'iting in the 

 first year of our era, throws some light on the matter as it was in the 

 Island of Cyprus. He mentions that Eratosthenes speaks of the 

 copper mines there as being of "some little service," since they 

 caused timber to be cut down to smelt the ore, and adds that ship- 

 building was also useful in this respect. And now see the contrast. 

 The Turk has swept away the forests of Cyprus ; and one of the 

 great aims of our Government there is to re-create them, not only 

 for the sake of the wood, but because in their absence the rainfall of 

 the island runs to waste. 



In the New World also, and in Australasia, gigantic and primeval 

 forests covered hill and plain. There they grew in solemn grandeur 

 till at last, their allotted life accomplished, they crashed to earth, 

 whereon instantly their successors filled the place which they left 

 vacant, drawing nutriment from their rotting substance. Then came 

 the new era, and all was changed. In the United States and Canada, 

 for example, and I believe that the same may be said of Australia 

 and other countries, the destruction of tree-life during the last fifty 

 years can only be called appalling. Millions of them that had taken 

 anything up to a thousand years to grow, have been ruthlessly hacked 

 down to suit the convenience or fill the pockets of the enterprising 

 settler and dealer in lumber, while for every tree that has fallen by 

 the axe, probably two have perished by fire, since the lucifer match 

 has proved the greatest enemy of forests. One morning the wanderer 

 or the sportsman leaves his careless fire burning in the heart of some 

 mighty wood, and the next the flames are roaring through hundreds 



