10 THE DEVELOPMENT OF BRITISH FORESTRY 



The earliest attempts to maintain the balance between 

 supply and demand were in the direction of grazing restric- 

 tions, and the prohibition — in communal forests, the man- 

 orial wastes, and other forms into which the natural forests 

 had resolved themselves — of indiscriminate cutting for 

 firewood and timber. The number of cattle were either 

 limited, or certain areas of forest closed to grazing altogether 

 for definite periods, so as to allow natural regeneration to 

 proceed, while firewood was usually restricted to dead, 

 damaged, or suppressed trees or windfalls. This may be 

 termed the 'preservative' age of forest management, in 

 which an endeavour was made to restore or maintain the 

 natural order of things without going to the trouble and 

 expense of artificial methods, and was probably fairly 

 extensively in force throughout Central Europe from 

 the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. 



As population increased, and with it the need for larger 

 areas being cultivated or meadowed for the food supply of 

 men and animals, the mere restriction of grazing and fuel 

 rights was found to be inadequate. Without enclosure, 

 absolute safeguards against forest destruction were difficult 

 to uphold, and as the area of natural forest gradually 

 decreased, the demands made upon the remainder were 

 all the greater. By the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries 

 it appears to have been clearly recognised that the main- 

 tenance of an adequate timber supply could only be 

 ensured by the partial or temporary enclosure, or closing, 

 of the forests or woodlands against grazing, and the arti- 

 ficial sowing or replanting of the ground. This was the 

 period which saw the commencement of our modern 

 system of sylviculture on regenerative or cultural prin- 

 ciples, and may be said to mark a distinct stage in the 

 history of forest development and utilisation in Europe. 

 Down to this period the tendency had been to leave forest 

 production more or less in the hands of nature, merely 



