44 ON THE CONSERVATION OF FORESTS IN NEW ZEALAND. 
by man, subsequent to the Roman era. For military reasons—to open 
up the country, facilitate the transport of troops, and to guard against 
surprise—the Romans not only constructed roads through the primi- 
tive forests of Scotland, but destroyed the forest to a considerable ex- 
tent on either side of all such roads. The Scottish kings and barons 
made lavish grants of forests to the numerous monasteries, and to the 
equally, or perhaps still more, numerous salt-pans established on the 
Scottish coasts. In both cases wood was used for fuel; and, in the 
latter case, the proprietors or lessees of the salt-pans had right to cut 
the requisite firewood from the nearest forests. During the civil com- 
motions and the long wars with England, much wood was uselessly 
destroyed, and subsequently to the establishment of comparative peace 
cultivation began to encroach on the remaining forest land. Not, how- 
ever, until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries do we find Acts passed by 
the Scottish Parliament directed against the destruction of woods, — 
the penalties increasing in severity from the time of James I. Pecu- 
niary fines were gradually succeeded by stocks, prison, or irons, scourg- 
ing, and lastly even death; but all this severity was too late, for an 
Act of James IV. speaks of the primitive Scottish forest as being in. 
his time ** utterly destroyed." 
There are, unfortunately, too numerous precedents for the position of 
inaction or indifference of the New Zealand Government in regard to 
the care and culture of the timber resources under its control; but 
this ought to afford no proper ground of excuse in a new country, 
which has the opportunity of avoiding the errors, and profiting by the 
lessons, exhibited by older nations or communities. It must be a 
sorry sort of satisfaetion or consolation, which cau be derived from the 
fact, that Britain and her possessions have played the ró/e of the New 
Zealand Government and colonists in regard to their timber resources 
over and over again,—have apathetically neglected or obstinately re- 
fused to avail themselves of a vast accumulation of the most disastrous 
experience ! 
All experience shows that when the virgin forest of New Zealand 
succumbs to natural decay, or to natural destructive agencies, or when 
it is destroyed by the agency, direct or indirect, of man—the valuable 
timber-yielding trees are of succeeded by a young and vigorous growt 
of the same species, but generally by a different and inferior growth, -< 
sometimes only fruticose,—occasionally only Cryptogamie. It is, in- 
