Forestry Literature. 19 



Wood impregnation, supposed to be a modern in- 

 vention, was already practiced; cedrium (cedar oil) 

 being used as well as a tar coating or immersion in 

 seawater for one year, to secure greater durability. 



4. Literature. 



As regards literature, we find in Greece, besides 

 what can be learned incidentally from the historians 

 Herodotus and Xenophon and from the natural history 

 of Aristotle, the first work on plant history and wood 

 technology, if not forestry, in 18 volumes by Theo- 

 phrastus (390-286 B.C.), a pupil of Aristotle and 

 Plato. 



Among the Romans, besides a number of historians, 

 at least three writers before Christ discussed in detail 

 agriculture and, in connection with it, tree culture; 

 namely, Cato (234-149 B.C.) who wrote an excellent 

 work De re rustica, in 162 chapters; Varro (116-26 

 B.C.), also De re rustica, in three books; and Ver- 

 gilius Maro (70-19 B.C.), who in his Georgica records 

 in six books the state of knowledge at that time. Of 

 the many writers on these subjects who came in the 

 Christian era there are also three to be mentioned, 

 namely, Cajus Plinius Major (23-79 A.D.), who in 

 his Historia naturalis, in 37 books, discusses also the 

 technique of silviculture; Lucius Junius Moderatus 

 Columella (about 50 A.D.), with 12 books, De re 

 rustica, and one book De arboribus, the former being 

 the best work of the ancients on the subject; and 

 Palladius, writing about 350 A.D., 13 books, De re 

 rustica, which in the original and in translations was 

 read until past the middle ages. 



