BRITISH FORESTRY AND ITS FUTURE PKOSPECTS. 161 



XIII. British Forestry and its Future Prospects. 

 By John Nisbet, D.CEc. 



Forestry is a subject which has hitherto in Britain been 

 accustomed to receive at best but intermittent, more or less 

 periodic, and altogether rather spasmodic attention. It is cer- 

 tainly one of the greatest merits of our Society that it has shown 

 itself the only body which has all along known what it wanted, 

 and which has availed itself of every reasonable opportunity 

 in advocating the claims of Forestry to receive much more of 

 national encouragement than it has yet obtained. Ever since 

 the Society's formation, the claims of Arboriculture have been 

 championed by it, as by no other body ; and it has during the 

 last twenty years or so taken the foremost part in recognising 

 the importance of Sylviculture, and in helping to diffuse a 

 knowledge of Economic Forestry, or the application of scientific 

 and business principles to the cultivation of woods, treated as 

 crops of timber, and not merely regarded as so many trees grow- 

 ing side by side. 



As far back as three centuries ago the demands made on the 

 British oak forests were heavy, for in those days we grew our 

 own supplies of timber for building the ships required for com- 

 mercial purposes and for constructing the navy, necessary for 

 the protection of our seaports. With miserable communications 

 by land, it can easily be understood that shrinkage in the supply 

 of oak timber within easy reach of the naval and other ship- 

 building yards at an early date caused apprehension to those 

 in authority. Though the cultivation of trees and woodlands 

 took place as early as the reign of Edward IV., four and a half 

 centuries ago, though plantations of trees were made for pur- 

 poses of utility during the reign of Henry VIII., and though 

 James I. issued instructions on the subject more than once in 

 the shape of statutes in Scotland ordering planting, and of royal 

 proclamations in England ordering the retention of oak stand- 

 ards in copsewoods, yet his successor on the throne, Charles I., 

 contributed largely to the destruction of the natural woodlands 

 through alienating portions of the royal forests by sale and by 

 grant to his favourites and leading courtiers. Then, later on, 

 the effects of the Civil War and of Cromwell's expansive agri- 

 cultural policy both acted very directly in hastening the further 

 destruction and disappearance of the still remaining forests. 



Hence it came that, at the time of the Restoration, Britain 



