312 FORESTS OF FRANCE. 
continued withdrawal of a great portion of the territory from the 
cultivation of trees and from other kinds of rural economy, 
merely to allow wealthy individuals to amuse themselves with 
field-sports. In Scotland, 2,000,000 acres, as well suited to the 
growth of forests and for pasture as is the soil generally, are 
withheld from agriculture, that they may be given up to herds of 
deer protected by the game laws. A single nobleman, for ex- 
ample, thus appropriates for his own pleasures not less than 100,- 
000 acres.* In this way one-tenth of all the land of Scotland is 
rendered valueless in an economical point of view—for the re- 
turns from the sale of the venison and other game scarcely 
suffice to pay the game-keepers and other incidental expenses— 
and in these so-called forests there grows neither building tim- 
ber nor fire-wood worth the cutting, as the animals destroy the 
young shoots. 
Lorests of Hrance. 
The preservation of the woods was one of the wise measures 
recommended to France by Sully, in the time of Henry IV., 
but the advice was little heeded, and the destruction of the 
forests went on with such alarming rapidity, that, two genera- 
tions later, Colbert uttered the prediction: “France will 
perish for want of wood.” Still, the extent of wooded soil 
was very great, and the evils attending its diminution were 
not so sensibly felt, that either the government or public opin- 
ion saw the necessity of authoritative interference, and in 
1750 Mirabeau estimated the remaining forests of the king- 
dom at seventeen millions of hectares [42,000,000 acres]. In 
1860 they were reduced to eight millions [19,769,000 acres], 
or at the rate of 82,000 hectares [202,600 acres] per year. 
Troy, from whose valuable pamphlet, Ltude sur le Reboisement 
des Montagnes, I take these statistical details, supposes that 
Mirabeau’s statement may have been an extravagant one, but 
it still remains certain that the waste has been enormous; for 
* ROBERTSON, Our Deer Forests. London, 1867. 
