FORESTRY IN GREAT BRITAIN IN EARLY TIMES 



WHAT do we know about the woods, the old forests, 

 'of our own country, their past history, and the 

 cause of their present absence ? We have heard 

 mention of, many of us have seen, the Forest of 

 Dean, the New Forest, Windsor Forest. Londoners 

 know Epping Forest ; but how many of them 

 realize that Epping is the remnant of an old Royal 

 forest once embracing the whole of Essex ! Dean, 

 New Forest, Windsor, are all remnants of such 

 forests, survivals from the time when the greater 

 part of these islands was covered with a vast forest 

 in which the ancestors of the members of the greatest 

 of present-day Empires walked about clothed, we 

 are told, in blue paint. 



This forest history of ours is fascinating, even 

 though it had all but ended when the Great War 

 broke out, and it appears to be well worth rescuing 

 from the obscurity in which it has become en- 

 shrouded. 



Our ancestors away back in our history knew all 

 about the utility of forests so far as their utility 

 was understood at that day. They utilised the 

 forest to the full for their several purposes : the 



