158 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



may be suggested, is, if not exactly legendary, yet at some 

 removes distant from the truth. Nisbet's introductory chapters 

 to the Forester and Our Forests and Woodlands are based to 

 some extent on original and good secondary authorities : but 

 his work is uncritical, and he is capable of remarkable in- 

 consistencies and errors. Dr J. Ritchie's chapter on forests 

 in his recent book (i,^ pp. 304 ff.) is admirable within its limits : 

 but this book stands practically alone among recent works, 

 which seem all to adopt, without examination, Nisbet's account 

 and the traditional stories of English forests. 



An adequate presentation of forest history would require 

 much more space and far more research than the following 

 remarks claim, and their object is rather to raise doubts than 

 to resolve any problem. It is something to the good if it is 

 recognised that there are doubts to settle and problems to 

 explore. 



In forestry there is no help but to take long views, and before 

 it is possible to do so with any certainty it is necessary to get 

 as exact an historical perspective as possible. This is, in some 

 measure, realised, and it is a point of honour to begin with the 

 Roman occupation. Actually there is very little to say about 

 the forests of Britain in Roman times : apart from some few 

 contemporary notices of doubtful accuracy — such as that of 

 Caesar (2, v. 12, § 5), who tells us that "there is timber of all 

 kinds, as in Gaul, save the beech and the fir" (cf. 3, pp. 661-2) 

 — we are left to conjectures which can be built up from 

 references to agriculture and mining, from archaeological 

 remains and inscriptions. But we do know that before the 

 Roman dominion collapsed, the island to the south of the wall 

 was completely Romanised, and that the country south of York 

 and east of modern Wales was, superficially at any rate, at a 

 comparatively high stage of civilisation, that it had metal 

 {4» PP- 20 ff., 38) and textile industries and exported corn - 

 (5, pp. 26, 76 ff.). Whatever the legionaries may have done 

 in the way of forest clearing for military purposes (see references 

 in 6, pp. 308 ff.) can have been but of relatively little importance 

 beside the progress of cultivation and mining, and it seems 

 sometimes to be forgotten that troops cannot go endlessly 



^ The numbers refer to the Bibliography at the end of the paper. 

 2 As to the cultivation of corn before the Roman conquest, see 3, 

 pp. 252 ff., 267, 357. 



