NATIONAL ASPECTS OF FORESTRY 3 



world, it is evident that a deficiency in any country must 

 be attributed either to a dense population, or to the balance 

 of nature, which provides for the more or less regular 

 reproduction of animal and vegetable life, having been 

 disturbed. In the former case, it is conceivable that a 

 country possessing large and expanding industries may 

 demand more timber than the natural forests of the 

 country can produce. Great Britain, at the present time, 

 is undoubtedly a case in point ; for, assuming that the old 

 natural forests of the country were restored, it would be 

 impossible for them to meet the existing consumption of 

 timber which is now going on, and leave a sufficient 

 area outside their boundaries to furnish food for the 

 people. But a far more frequent cause of a country ex- 

 periencing a deficiency of timber may be found in a dis- 

 turbance of the true balance of nature. This, apart 

 from exceptional cases, invariably follows the advent of 

 civilisation, or civilised men. When primitive races 

 alone occupy a forest country, and live chiefly by hunt- 

 ing wild animals and fishing, the normal growth of the 

 forest is sufficient to make good any loss occasioned 

 by felling, grazing, or browsing of herbivorous animals, 

 etc., and the general perpetuation of the woodland area is 

 more or less spontaneous. An advance in civilisation, 

 however, brings in its train many changes which adversely 

 affect the natural forest. In the first place, the rudiments 

 of sanitation and medical science on the one hand, and 

 humanitarian principles on the other, lead to an increase 

 in population, which was impossible in the days of inter- 

 tribal warfare, uncertain means of subsistence, and the 

 various fatalities incidental to a savage life. But the 

 most potent factor of any as regards forest destruction 

 is the gradual transition of a tribe from a hunting to a 

 pastoral life, owing to the domestication of cattle, sheep, 

 and goats, as wild game decreases, and the savage hand 



