230 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



own account delayed the evil day but little. When the mature 

 timber was exhausted, the right-holders felled immature trees, 

 and so it went from bad to worse. A commission was 

 appointed in 1794 to inquire into the then existing condition 

 of the forest. They reported that the Stueve Wald consisted of 

 only 6000 morgen, covered with beech, scrub, and some small 

 coppice-standards, and that the rest was barren and heather- 

 clad. However, even then the course of destruction did not 

 cease, and as no settlement could be arrived at, it ended only 

 when there was nothing left to destroy. The great Druhe 

 Wald in the Winsen district, favourably situated for export, 

 was razed off the face of the earth even more rapidly, and 

 quite as effectively. 



The records of all districts in these heather tracts contain 

 the same story. The danger was fully recognised, but the 

 authorities were utterly powerless in the face of entirely 

 unregulated rights of user, as exercised by a particularly 

 independent and selfish peasantry, who resisted all attempts 

 at settlement. The innumerable complaints and warnings 

 which flooded every office remained ineffective for more than 

 a century. When the conifers, pine and spruce, were first 

 introduced into these regions, the great old forests of broad- 

 leaved species had practically disappeared and with the 

 exception of some scattered remnants had ceased to exist. 

 The old name alone remained. 



The forests in these heather tracts have, doubtless, less 

 recuperative power than those growing on more favourably 

 situated and richer lands ; for the heather sprouts, owing to 

 the generous precipitates of moisture, even in the half shade 

 of opened-out forests, and the natural reproduction of broad- 

 leaved species, with the exception of the birch, is thereby 

 rendered impossible. The natural consequence was that not 

 only was the growing stock of timber destroyed and wasted, 

 but that all chances of recuperation, and with it the very 

 forest soil itself, was lost. 



It is not a matter of speculation, but of documentary 

 evidence, that, with few exceptions, the first afforestations with 

 conifers took place in such forests, of which only the name 

 remained, and here the pest has naturally had full sway; but 

 where, on the other hand, the records show that the pine and 

 spruce were cultivated in the still existing scattered remnants 



