THE IMPORTANCE OF FORESTS IN MU.ITARY DEFENCE. 225 



by woodlands, which again furnish the materials for erecting huts 

 and shelters. In considering the defensibility of forests, it must 

 be remembered that land fortifications are now rendered of 

 little estimation by modern conditions. Forts are easily located, 

 and can then be searched and destroyed by modern shell fire, 

 even from positions invisible from the fort itself. In an age 

 when the track of comets through space can be calculated to 

 a nicety, the path of artillery shells to their object becomes a 

 very simple matter, while high explosives have vastly multiplied 

 their destructive effect. Forts that are up-to-date to-day become 

 obsolete to-morrow, through the increase of artillery range, and 

 they require periodical re-armament. Millions of money have 

 been sunk in these constructions to provide a security which is 

 effective only until the next advance in military invention. 



Not so with forests. These form screens within a few years 

 after planting, and increase in obstructive value with the years, 

 being always, and for permanent reasons, obstructions to the 

 advance of hostile armies. 



Hitherto, in this article, forests have been considered only as 

 passive obstructions, inactive obstacles ; but such obstacles, 

 while they have always delayed, have seldom defeated active 

 energy when the prize has seemed worthy of the effort. To 

 this the North Pole is the witness and the summit of Mount 

 Everest the exception. Forests, however, demand foresters, and 

 lead on to an investigation of higher interest and importance, 

 military as well as industrial. 



Those who have visited Continental forests are unanimous in 

 declaring, that the semi-military organisation there employed 

 in regulating the woodland employes is of the greatest value in 

 regularising the ceaseless method necessary to the growth of 

 forests, and to their control in all stages of youth, maturity and 

 decay. This point then need not be laboured, it is acknow- 

 ledged ; and the fact that it continues to be foreign to our insular 

 habits explains many of the difificulties which we experience in 

 all systems where administration counts for much, and where 

 our own strong point, individual energy and independence, is 

 less in evidence. A combination of both these opposite 

 characteristics would of course be an approach to perfection 

 in all industries. 



In establishing State controlled and assisted forests through- 

 out Great Britain and Ireland (not necessarily wholly State- 



