EOYAL FOEESTS. 33^^ 



sary for tlie breeding of deer, wild boars, and other game, or for 

 the more reasonable purpose of furnishing a supply of building 

 timber and fuel for futm-e generations. It was reserved for more 

 advanced ages to appreciate the geographical importance of the 

 woods, and it is only in the most recent times, only in a few 

 countries of Europe, that the general destruction of the forests 

 has been recognized as the most potent among the many causes 

 of the physical deterioration of the earth.* 



Royal Forests cmd Game Laws. 



The French authors I have quoted, as well as many other 

 writers of the same nation, refer to the French Revolution as 

 having given a new impulse to destructive causes which were al- 

 ready threatening the total extermination of the woods.f The 

 general crusade against the forests, which accompanied that im- 

 portant event, is to be ascribed, in a considerable degree, to po- 

 litical resentments. The forest codes of the mediseval kings, and 



regulations for the protection of the property of every tribe and of every head 

 of a family against irregular depredations. Small quadrupeds were allowed 

 to pasture in dense woods, not in thin ones ; but no animal could feed in any 

 forest without the consent of the proprietor of the soil. Every Hebrew might 

 pick up fallen boughs and twigs, but was not permitted to cut them. Trees 

 might be pruned for the trimmings, with the exception of the olive and other 

 fruit-trees, and provided there was sufficient shade in the place." — Lectures on 

 the History of the Jewish Church, part i., p. 271. 



Alfred Maury mentions several provisions taken from the laws of the Indian 

 legislator Manu, on the same subject. — Les Forets de la Oaule, p. 9. 



The very ancient tables of Heraclea contain provisions for the protection of 

 woods, but whether these referred only to sacred groves, to public forests, or 

 to leased lands, is not clear. 



* We must perhaps make an exception in favor of the Emperor Constantine, 

 who commenced the magnificent series of aqueducts and cisterns which still 

 supply Constantinople with water, and enacted strict laws for the protection 

 of the forest of Belgrade, in which rise the springs that feed the aqueducts. 

 See an article by Mr. H. A. Homes on the Water-Supply of Constantinople in 

 the Albany Argus of June 6, 1872. 



f Religious intolerance had produced similar effects in France at an earlier 

 period. " The revocation of the edict of Nantes and the dragonnades occa- 

 sioned the sale of the forests of the unhappy Protestants, who fled to seek in 

 foreign lands the liberty of conscience which was refused to them in France. 

 The forests were soon felled by the purchasers, and the soil in part brought : 

 under cultivation."— Becquerel, Des CUmats, etc., p. 303. 



