174 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
XII. Introduction to Course of Forestry Lectures, Edinburgh 
University, Session 1891-92. By Colonel Batney, R.E., 
University Lecturer; Conservator of Forests, and Director 
of the Indian Forest School; formerly Acting Inspector- 
General of Forests to the Government of India. 
In early times the greater part of the dry land was no doubt 
covered with trees and shrubs of various kinds, each kind 
flourishing and maintaining itself in the locality best suited to its 
special requirements. As the older trees fell to the ground, their 
places were taken by others of the same or of associated species, 
which grew up in the openings thus afforded to them, and an 
unbroken succession of trees and shrubs was in this manner 
maintained ; for at that remote period but few of those destructive 
agencies were at work which have raised Forestry to a science, 
and have led to its inclusion among the subjects to be taught at 
this University. 
What is the foremost among these destructive agencies? 
Unquestionably Man; and had we foresters lived in the days 
when his energies in this direction were most actively employed, 
and had we endeavoured to arrest the havoc he was committing 
among his natural forests, we should have found him a very 
difficult being to deal with. 
It is no doubt true that natural phenomena, such as storms 
of wind, have always occurred from time to time; but the 
forest growth would, in most cases, surely if slowly re-establish 
itself after each visitation, and the damage done by four-footed 
animals, insects, and noxious plants, such as fungi, would not 
be likely to make much impression on the vast extent of forest 
which then covered the earth’s surface. The human population 
of the world was small, and the requirements of man were by no 
means so varied and extensive as they are at present. But as 
population increased and civilisation advanced, the older order of 
things gradually and of necessity passed away; man had to 
extend the small patches of cultivation which were the scene of 
his first efforts in the art of agriculture, and he wanted timber 
and firewood for domestic use. He also needed grazing grounds 
for his flocks and herds, and much ground was permanently 
cleared of forest in order to satisfy his ever-growing requirements 
