SUGGESTIONS FOR FOREST ADMINISTRATION IN 



CHINA.i 



By p. C. King. 



Introduction. 



Although the complete deforestation in China, accompanied 

 by its disastrous consequences, has served the world as a moral 

 lesson, yet few have inquired into the causes of such destruction. 

 Economic pressure is often employed to explain the existence and 

 disappearance of certain social institutions. But its application 

 here is hardly plausible. The economic condition of the Chinese 

 people in the past was not any worse than that of the people 

 in India or Japan and perhaps not worse than that of the Euro- 

 peans in the medieval ages. Yet forests in these countries are 

 for the most part preserved. 



Even granting economic pressure as the ultimate causal factor, 

 it must have favorable conditions under which to operate. In 

 the absence of better explanations, the writer offers to present 

 three causes or favorable conditions under which deforestation 

 has been going on without check. These are : (1) the early decay 

 of feudalism, (2) the laisses faire policy of the government, and 

 (3) the frequent outbreak of internal disturbances. 



In the third century B. C, when the larger part of Europe was 

 still in tribal condition and was hardly ready for feudalism, 

 feudalism in China had had an existence of more than two 

 thousand years and was beginning to decay rapidly. The con- 

 quest of feudal kingdoms with the final establishment of a great 

 empire in 221 B. C. dealt the final death blow to feudalism in 

 China. The overthrow of feudalism effected a great change in 

 property conditions. Heretofore forests had been owned by the 

 princes. The pleasure of hunting indulged by them had kept 

 the forests under good care for the chase and, as on record in 

 the classics, manned with a regular force of forest officers. When 



^ This article is part of a thesis prepared by Mr. King, a Chinese student 

 at Cornell University, for the degree of Master in Forestry. — Editor. 

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