SCHOOL OF FOREST ENGINEERS 

 IN SPAIN. 



CHAPTER I. 



ORIGIN OF A CORPS OF FOREST ENGINEERS IN SPAIN. 



THE treatment of forests in Spain for many ag^s seems to 

 have differed little from that of the treatment of forests in 

 other countries, differing chiefly in this : for while in many 

 other lands the disposition to practice a wasteful destruc- 

 tion of forests was to some extent held in check by 

 measures adopted by kings and nobles to secure for them- 

 selves what are called the pleasures of the chase, and 

 this leading them to punish unmercifully the destruction by 

 others of trees which afforded covert for their game, this 

 does not seem to have been the case, or the case to the 

 same extent, with the successive rulers of the Peninsula, 

 who were all of them of different races from the later- 

 conquerors of Central Europe. 



The present endeavour to secure the conservation,economic 

 exploration, improvement, and so far as practicable and 

 expedient the replenishing and extension of existing forests 

 in Spain may be said to have originated, or taken a fresh 

 departure in the issue of General Ordinances in reference 

 to these in 1833. There had been previous legislation 

 in regard to the forests; and some of the laws and official 

 instructions which had been issued were not unimportant. 

 Among those deserving of notice are such issued by J)on 

 Fernando and Donna Isabel in 1496, and others by Don 

 Carlos J, and Donna Juana in 1518. And a memoir on. 



