t 
INTRODUCTION TO COURSE OF FORESTRY LECTURES, 17 
of this nature. Then in course of time he began to build better 
houses with larger timber; he made boats and ships; and, later 
on, he constructed railways, and developed numerous industries 
which consumed vast quantities of wood of all species, qualities, 
and sizes; at the same time he largely extended his cultivation 
and increased his flocks and herds ; and before every one of these 
advances, portions of the natural forest went down, and dis- 
appeared for ever from the face of the land. But the process was 
a very gradual one, extending over many centuries. It proceeded 
slowly at first, and not until comparatively recent times did the 
country begin to assume its present appearance. It is not so very 
long ago that the road from London to Edinburgh was an unsafe 
one to travel over, in consequence of the gangs of robbers who 
found shelter in the thick forests through which it passed. I 
nave no figures before me from which I can trace the progress 
of denudation ; but I have no doubt that a marked change com- 
-nenced from the time that these islands began to enter upon that 
narvellous development of their trades and industries, which has 
laced the British race in the foremost place among the nations 
vf the world. Do not misunderstand me to pretend that these 
vere changes for the worse ; you do not require me to tell you 
that up to a certain, and, indeed, a very advanced point, they were 
very much for the better. 
Long before this stage of development had been reached, how- 
ever, a time had come when it was found impossible for every 
one to continue to help himself with a free hand ; claims to 
ownership of forest and waste lands had been set up, and 
established by the law of Might, and some sort of restrictions had 
begun to be enforced. But these were quite inadequate to arrest 
the progress of the destruction of the natural forest, which at 
length reached a point at which the supply of forest produce 
became insufficient to meet the requirements of the population ; 
and measures then began to be taken not only to secure some 
tracts of forest from further encroachment, but also to increase 
the wood-bearing area by sowing and planting. But it is not to 
measures of this nature that many of our largest forests owe their 
existence at the present day. Their continued maintenance is 
due rather to the protection they received under strict laws for 
the preservation of game, than to any endeavour to guard them 
for the sake of the timber they could yield. The New Forest in 
Hampshire is a good example of this, and the same may probably 
