FORESTS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 303 



In fact, England is, I believe, the only European country 

 wliere private enterprise has pursued sylviculture on a really 

 great scale, though admirable examples have been set in many 

 others. In England the law of primogeniture, and other institu- 

 tions and national customs which tend to keep large estates long 

 imdivided and in the same hne of inheritance, the wealth of the 

 landholders, the special adaptation of the climate to the growth 

 of forest-trees, and the difficulty of finding safe and profitable in- 

 vestments of capital, combine to afford encouragements for the 

 plantation of forests, which scarcely exist elsewhere in the same 

 degree. Many laws for the protection of the forest, as a cover 

 for game and for the preservation of ship timber, were enacted 

 in England before the seventeenth century. The Statutes I 

 Ehz. c. XV., XIII EHz. c. v., and XXVII Eli^;. c. xix., which 

 have sometimes been understood as designed to discourage the 

 manufactm*e of iron, were obviously intended to prevent the 

 destruction of large and valuable timber, useful in ordinary and 

 naval architecture, by burning it for charcoal. The injury to 

 the forges was accidental, not the purpose of the laws. 



In Scotland, where the country is for the most part broken and 

 mountainous, the general destruction of the forests has been at- 

 tended with very serious evils, and it is in Scotland that many of 

 the most extensive British forest plantations have now been 

 formed. But although the inclination of surface in Scotland is 

 rapid, the geological constitution of the soil is not of a character 

 to promote such destructive degradation by running water as in 

 Southern France, and it has not to contend with the parching 

 droughts by which the devastations of the torrents are rendered 

 more injurious in those provinces. 



It is difficult to understand how either law or public opinion, 

 in a country occupied by a dense and intelligent population, and, 



Indian provinces, and the demands of the railways for fuel and timber have 

 greatly augmented the consumption of lumber, and of course contributed to 

 the destruction of the woods. The forests of British India are now, and for 

 several years have been, under the control of an efficient governmental organ- 

 ization, with great advantage both to the government and to the general 

 private interests of the people. 



The official Reports on Forest Conservancy from May, 1862, to August, 

 1871, in 4 vols, folio, contain much statistical and practical information on all 

 subjects connected with the administration of the forest. 



