LEGISLATION ON THE FOREST, 375 



regions of Europe, awaits an important part of the tendtory of 

 the United States, and of other comparatively new countries over 

 which European civilization is now extending its sway, unless 

 prompt measures are taken to check the action of destructive 

 causes already in operation. It is almost in vain to expect that 

 mere restrictive legislation can do anything effectual to arrest the 

 progress of the evil in those countries, except so far as the state 

 is still the proprietor of extensive forests. "Woodlands which 

 have passed into private hands will everywhere be managed, in 

 spite of legal restrictions, upon the same economical principles as 

 other possessions, and every proprietor will, as a general rule, fell 

 his woods, unless he beheves that it will be for his pecuniary in- 

 terest to preserve them. Few of the new provinces which the 

 last three centuries have brought under the control of the Eu- 

 ropean race, would tolerate any interference by the law-making 

 power with what they regard as the most sacred of civil rights — 

 the right, namely, of every man to do what he will with his own. 

 In the Old "World, even in France, whose people, of all European 

 nations, love best to be governed and are least annoyed by bu- 

 reaucratic supervision, law has been found impotent to prevent 

 the destruction, or wasteful economy, of private forests ; and in 

 many of the mountainous departments of that country, man is 

 .at this moment so fast laying waste the face of the earth, that 

 the most serious fears are entertained, not only of the depopula- 

 tion of those districts, but of enormous mischiefs to the prov- 

 inces contiguous to them.* The only legal provisions from which 



* ' ' The laws against clearing have never been able to prevent these opera- 

 tions when the proprietor found his advantage in them, and the long series of 

 royal ordinances and decrees of parliaments, proclaimed from the days of 

 Charlemagne to our own, with a view of securing forest property against the 

 improvidence of its owners, have served only to show the impotence of legis- 

 lative action on this subject." — Clave, Etudes sur VEconomie Forestiere, p. 32. 



' ' A proprietor can alwaj's contrive to clear his woods, whatever may be done 

 to prevent him ; it is a mere question of time, and a few imprudent cuttings, 

 a few abuses of the right of pasturage, suffice to destroy a forest in spite of 

 all regulations to the contrary." — Dun oyer, De la Liberie du Travail, ii., p. 

 452, as quoted by Clave, p. 353. 



Both authors agree that the preservation of the forests in France is practi- 

 cable only by their transfer to the state, w^hich alone can protect them and 

 secure their proper treatment. It is much to be feared that even this measure 

 would be inadequate to preserve the forests of the American Union. There 

 is little respect for public property in America, and the Federal Government, 



