4 UTILITY OF FORESTS TO A NATION 



It is scarcely a matter for surprise, therefore, that 

 when the war-cloud burst over Europe this country 

 from the forestry point of view, was totally un- 

 prepared. 



What was the result ? Both Government and 

 public were equally amazed, it may be said dumb- 

 founded, to discover that there was something in 

 this forestry problem ; and that it was going to 

 prove, or the absence of timber supplies in the 

 country was going to prove, a most troublesome 

 thorn in the management of one side of the war. 

 But the war has done more. For it has brought 

 home to Government and public alike the realiza- 

 tion that the aims and objects of forestry and its 

 economic importance to the country were a sealed 

 book to both. 



Let us consider this aspect of the matter briefly. 

 What are these aims, and what is the utility of the 

 forest to a nation in the stress of war and in times 

 of peace ? 



Both, it was thought, were well understood on 

 the Continent of Europe before the war. But an 

 examination of continental text-books on the subject 

 discloses the fact that so far as war, modern war, 

 is concerned, even on the Continent the value of the 

 forest and its close connection with the operations 

 of the contending armies was but dimly foreseen. 

 Large areas of forest would form a good protective 

 land frontier to a nation and would provide firewood 

 for the troops. These were considered to be their 

 chief military value. Perhaps in the archives of the 

 German War Staff it may be recorded that an 



