INTRODUCTION 



TO THE 



STUDY OF MODERN FOREST ECONOMY. 



OVERTURE. 



ACCORDING to old English usage, and in legal phraseology 

 still, the term forest is applicable primarily not to a mass 

 of trees, but to a place of resort and shelter for animals 

 which may be pursued and slaughtered for amusement 

 And it was only in a secondary sense that the term was 

 first applied to the chief characteristic of such a place of 

 resort and shelter the trees. To many it may appear 

 incongruous to speak of a place as a forest irrespective of 

 trees ; but the usage is common in speaking of the deer 

 forests of Scotland ; and the usage is justifiable, though it 

 may remind one of the ironical announcement of c the play 

 of Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet left out/ A like change 

 to that which has taken place in the course of time in the 

 use of the English term seems to have occurred in the 

 use made of the corresponding terms in French and in 

 German. 



In the conservation, culture, and exploitation, or profit- 

 able disposal of forest products, considerable differences of 

 practice exist. In Britain we hear much of gamekeepers ; 

 on the Continent of Europe we hear much of forest- 

 warders; here the game, there the wood, is the principal 

 object of conservation. In Britain we hear much of 

 arboriculture ; on the Continent we hear much of sylvi- 

 culture ; the former refers to woods and plantations, the 

 other term speaks of woods and forests ; in the one case 



B 



