826 FORESTS OF UNITED STATES. 
Forests of United States. 
I greatly doubt whether any one of the American States, ex- 
cept, perhaps, Oregon, has, at this moment, more woodland than 
it ought permanently to preserve, though, no doubt, a different 
distribution of the forests in all of them might be highly ad- 
vantageous. It is, perhaps, a misfortune to the American Union 
that the State Governments haye so generally disposed of their 
original domain to private citizens. It is true that public pro- 
perty is not sufficiently réspected in the United States; and 
within the memory of almost every man of mature age, timber 
was of so little value in the northernmost States that the own- 
ers of private woodlands submitted, almost without complaint, 
to what would be regarded elsewhere as very aggravated tres- 
passes upon them.* Persons in want of timber helped them- 
selves to it wherever they could find it, and a claim for dam- 
ages, for so insignificant a wrong as cutting down and carrying off 
a few pine or oak trees, was regarded as a mean-spirited act in 
a proprietor. The habits formed at this period are not alto- 
gether obsolete, and even now the notion of a common right of 
property in the woods still lingers, if not as an opinion at least 
as asentiment. Under such circumstances it has been difficult 
to protect the forest, whether it belong to the State or to indi- 
* According to the maxims of English jurisprudence, the common law con- 
sists of general customs so long established that ‘‘ the memory of man runneth 
not to the contrary.”’ In other words, long custom makes law. In new conn- 
tries, the change of circumstances creates new customs, and, in time, new 
law, without the aid of legislation. Had the American colonists observed a 
more sparing economy in the treatment of their woods, a new code of custom- 
ary forest-law would have sprung up and acquired the force of a statute. 
Popular habit was fast elaborating the fundamental principles of such a code, 
when the rapid increase in the value of timber, in consequence of the reckless 
devastation of the woodlands, made it the interest of the proprietors to inter- 
fere with this incipient system of forest jurisprudence, and appeal to the rules 
of English law for the protection of their woods. The courts have sustained 
these appeals, and forest property is now legally as inviolable as any other, 
though common opinion still combats the course of judicial decision on such 
questions. 
