JPHELIMINARY STATEMENT. 



manifested themselves to an extent which has caused 

 considerable anxiety to men of observation and fore- 

 thought. The cry has gone up not once only, or from 

 one land alone, but it has been repeatedly heard ; there is 

 scarcely a country in Europe in which it has not been 

 raised at one time or another ; and as it has been in 

 Europe so has it been elsewhere. This has been chiefly 

 within the last 250 years ; but it has been found that the 

 evil has been going on since a time long before the com- 

 mencement of the 2000 years which are characterised to 

 us by the march of Christianity and modern civilisation 

 and science ; and the effects have been felt both in the 

 Old World and the New. Now, after successive applica- 

 tions of topical remedies to the evils as they manifested 

 themselves in different lands and at different times, modern 

 science, and more especially that in modern science to 

 which the designation ' Forest Science ' has been given, 

 has been brought to bear, not without success, upon the 

 discovery of appropriate permanent scientific remedies for 

 the evil in the multiform phases in which it presents 

 itself. 



The more pressing forms of the evil were seen in a 

 reduced supply of wood, such as is yielded by timber 

 forests ; and of wood, such as is yielded by coppice woods ; 

 a diminished humidity of soil and climate beyond what is 

 favourable to agriculture and allied industries pertaining 

 to rural economy ; the occasional occurrence of devasta- 

 ting torrents and inundations ; and the drifting of sterile 

 sands over lands previously fertile and productive. 



In regard to some of these phases of the evil it may be 

 stated that the remedy which at once suggested itself as 

 practicable was employed, sometimes with success and 

 sometimes ineffectually ; and the accumulated observa- 

 tions of results have not been lost to forest science, or the 

 practical application of that science in forest economy. 



There are numerous well-known facts which show that 

 the destruction of single trees, of plots of trees, and in 



