ROYAL FORESTS. 3849 
necessary for the breeding of deer, wild boars, and other game, 
or for the more reasonable purpose of furnishing a supply of 
building timber and fuel for future generations. It was 
reserved for more advanced ages to appreciate the geographical 
importance of the woods, and it is only in the most recent 
times, only in a few countries of Europe, that the general 
destruction of the forests has been recognized as the most 
potent among the many causes of the physical deterioration of 
the earth.* 
Royal Forests and Game Laws. 
The French authors I have quoted, as well as many other 
writers of the same nation, refer to the French Revolution as hay- 
ing given anew impulse to destructive causes which were already 
threatening the total extermination of the woods.t The general 
crusade against the forests, which accompanied that important 
event, is to be ascribed, in a considerable degree, to political re- 
pick up fallen boughs and twigs, but was not permitted to cut them. ‘Trees 
might be pruned for the trimmings, with the exception of the olive and other 
fruit-trees, and provided there was sufficient shade in the place.”—Lectures on 
the History of the Jewish Church, parti., p. 271. 
Alfred Maury mentions several provisions taken from the laws of the Indian 
legislator Manu, on the same subject.—Les Foréts de la Gaule, p. 9. 
The very ancient Tables of Heraclea contain provisions for the protection 
of woods, but whether these referred only to sacred groves, to public forests, 
or to leased lands, is not clear. 
* We must perhaps make an exception in favor of the Emperor Constantine, 
who commenced the magnificent series of aqueducts and cisterns which still 
supply Constantinople with water, and enacted strict laws for the protection of 
the forest of Belgrade, in which rise the springs that feed the aqueducts. See 
an article by Mr. H. A. Homes on the Water-Supply of Constantinople in the 
Albany Argus of June 6, 1872. 
{ Religious intolerance had produced similar effects in France at an earlier 
period. ‘‘The revocation of the edict of Nantes and the dragonnades occa- 
sioned the sale of the forests of the unhappy Protestants, who fled to seek in 
foreign lands the liberty of conscience which was refused to them in France. 
The forests were soon felled by the purchasers, and the soil in part brought 
under cultivation.” —-BECQUEREL, Des Climats, etc., p. 303. 
