Il6 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



" servitudes " and so forth. The feudal system became 

 gradually weaker after the Middle Ages, and with industrial 

 improvement forestry methods developed. By the end of the 

 eighteenth century technical forestry was so well understood in 

 Germany that it strikes one as strange that some of the 

 knowledge did not reach England until almost exactly a 

 hundred years later, and even then was not received with 

 much enthusiasm. Although well advanced in forest organisa- 

 tion, administration, methods of management, education, and 

 the practice of silviculture a century ago, Germany was just 

 then beginning the great forward movement which has 

 brought it to the forefront among the nations. Forest policy 

 was then established, silvicultural principles founded on a 

 scientific basis, and great advance made in every department 

 of forest technology. This nineteenth century period is 

 treated in masterly fashion by the author, who speaks from 

 an intimate knowledge of the country and its conditions. 



Austria and Hungary are taken separately — the account 

 of the management of Austria's privately owned forests 

 being particularly interesting. It shows among other 

 things the far-reaching influence of legislation upon the 

 treatment of forest areas. Switzerland comes under con- 

 sideration next, and the evolution of its cantonal system of 

 administration is traced. France is done justice to in a 

 chapter which forms one-tenth part of the volume. After 

 dealing with the development of forest proprietorship, policy 

 and administration, the history of the great works of reclama- 

 tion, for which France is so famous, is given in consider- 

 able detail, after which the successive stages by which the 

 country has progressed in forestry education, literature, science 

 and practice are described. This section has gained more 

 than any other from the author's revision for the second 

 edition. 



Other parts of the book deal with the past and present 

 condition of forestry in Russia, Scandinavia, the Balkan States 

 and South-European countries. Great Britain and its Colonies, 

 Japan, and the United States of America. 



Some of Dr Fernow's pithy remarks on our countrymen 

 and their attitude towards forestry may be quoted. They let 

 us " see oorsels as ithers see us." 



" Politically the Englishman is an individualist. . . . 



