VORESTAL LITERATURE. 231 



While they, in speaking of Les Forets and of La Code 

 Forestiere, refer to a country covered more or less with 

 trees, we, in speaking of The Green Wood and of Forestry, 

 hitherto have thought chiefly of the game and of the 

 chase, or of the shooting of deer. Our forest laws relate 

 mainly, if I may not say exclusively, to hunting, these 

 laws having nothing to do with shrubs and trees, except- 

 ing in so far as they may supply shelter or covert for 

 game. I speak advisedly when I say, that, according to 

 the technical use of the term in English law, a forest need 

 not contain a single tree, and a dozen of contiguous 

 counties might be covered with trees without these 

 constituting a forest. The totally different circumstances 

 in which the different countries have stood in regard to 

 the requirements of forest products account for the 

 difference in the attention hitherto given on the 

 Continent and in Britain to the study of what is known 

 there as Forest Science. 



' It may be asked, seeing it is so -Why should we not 

 go on as we have been doing hitherto ? The answer is 

 in our Colonies, and in the Indian Empire of India, evils 

 which have existed long are being experienced and 

 remedied ; and those whom the country would engage to 

 go forth to meet the evils must go, at the country's 

 expense, to acquire the necessary education in other lands, 

 and in a foreign language unknown to most young 

 gardeners and foresters, and sons of foresters, whose life 

 has been spent in connection with the management of 

 trees, and which is so taught in many of our schools, that 

 few even of the young men of our country who have had 

 a liberal education could understand instruction given in 

 it as they could instruction given in their own tongue.' 



The pecuniary returns, I may add, are likely far to 

 exceed in amount the expenditure likely to be incurred. 



In the years 1860-64, during which years I held the 

 office of Colonial botanist, and thus had my attention 

 directed to this matter, the annual revenue derived from 



