THE SCIENCE AND TEACHING 



OP 



FOEESTEY 



IT gives me mucli pleasure to address you here and on my present 

 subject : here, because in one of the adjacent class-rooms, in 1876, 

 before a large class of voluntary students, I had the honour of giving what 

 was, I believe, the first course of lectures on forestry as a complete science 

 ever delivered in this country ; on my present subject, because I am fully 

 convinced of its great national importance at the present time. There can 

 hardly be said to be any interest in the science of forestry here in England ; 

 in fact, most people have but very vague ideas as. to. its scope, objects or 

 importance. The word " forester," most commonly suggests a member of 

 an admirable friendly society with a tendency to green silk scarves and 

 badges, or occasional masquerading as Robin Hood and his merry men. A 

 " forest " is to many of us a large wood or plantation, the most valuable 

 function of which is to act as a game-preserve. This latter view has been 

 prevalent throughout Europe for seven centuries. The original significance 

 of the word "forest" is that land which was outside (Latin foris) the 

 " ham," " mark," or "ton," that is, the home-farm or tilled land of the town- 

 ship, which was not cleared, or felled; not in "fields," and not under the 

 same laws as the agricultural land which had itself once formed part of the 

 primeval forest. Thus the forest was part of the " common " lands of the 

 early village communities, who felled its timber for firewood or for building, 

 and turned their cattle to graze in its open spaces, or to feed on the masts 

 and acorns of its woodlands. Probably large tracts of land in many parts 

 of Great Britain have never been covered with timber trees within the his- 

 torical period, yet were forest in the strict sense of the word. This forest 

 land was not subject to that periodical redistribution and primitive system 

 of rotation of crops which applied to the " common fields " of the com- 

 munity ; and thus when the Continental feudalism superseded the early 

 English village system, the forest lands fell more completely into the hands 

 of the Crown and the nobility, the " lords of the manor," subject generally, 

 however, to the " common rights " of topping and lopping, cutting turf, 

 pasturage, &c., varying in different cases. The primeval forests of England 

 were probably of oak ; the beech, the lime, and probably the elm being in- 

 troduced during the Roman occupation, and the chestnut perhaps not till 

 Norman times. The woodlands that had been the strongholds of the 

 Britons, and in which Gurth and Wamba fed the swine of the Saxon thane 



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