318 FOEESTS OF UNITED STATES. 



ever they could find it, and a claim for damages, for so insignifi- 

 cant a wrong as cutting down and carrying ofi a few pine or oak 

 trees, was regarded as a mean-spirited act in a proprietor. The 

 habits formed at this period are not altogether obsolete, and even 

 now the notion of a common right of property in the woods 

 still lingers, if not as an opinion, at least as a sentiment. Under 

 such circumstances it has been difficult to protect the forest, 

 whether it belong to the State or to individuals. Property of 

 this kind is subject to plunder, as well as to frequent damage by 

 fire. The destruction from these causes would, indeed, consider- 

 ably lessen, but would by no means wholly annihilate, the climatic 

 and geographical influences of the forest, or ruinously diminish 

 its value as a regular source of supply of fuel and timber. 



It is evidently a matter of the utmost importance that the pub- 

 lic, and especially land-owners, be roused to a sense of the dan- 

 gers to which the indiscriminate clearing of the woods may ex- 

 pose, not only future generations, but the very soil itself. Some 

 of the American States, as well as the Governments of many 

 European colonies, still retain the ownership of great tracts of 

 primitive woodland. The State of New York, for example, has, 

 in its northeastern counties, a vast extent of territory in which 

 the lumberman has only here and there estabhshed his camp, and 

 where the forest, though interspersed with permanent settlements, 

 robbed of some of its finest pine groves, and often ravaged by 

 devastating fires, still covers far the largest proportion of the sur- 

 face. Through this territory the soil is generally poor, and even 

 the new clearings have little of the luxuriance of harvest which 

 distinguishes them elsewhere. The value of the land for agri- 

 cultural uses is therefore very small, and few purchases are made 

 for any other purpose than to strip the soil of its timber. It has 

 been often proposed that the State should declare the remaining 

 forest the inalienable property of the commonwealth, but I be- 

 lieve the motive of the suggestion has originated rather in poeti- 

 cal than in economical views of the subject. Both these classes 



tation of tlie woodlands, made it the interest of the proprietors to interfere 

 with this incipient system of forest jurisprudence, and appeal to the rules 

 of English law for the protection of their woods. The courts have sustained 

 these appeals, and forest property is now legally as inviolable as any other, 

 though common opinion still combats the course of judicial decision on such 

 questions. 



