NATIONAL ASPECTS OF FORESTRY 11 



checking abuse or wilful damage by laws and regulations 

 which were possibly not very strictly observed. 



This reduction of the natural forest area was, however, 

 obviously imperative, for had it not taken place the 

 improvement or cultivation of the land for agricultural 

 or grazing purposes would have been impossible. But 

 there is good reason to suppose that it went too far 

 in many countries before remedial measures were intro- 

 duced. A case in point may be found in the British 

 Isles, in which timber-growing for purely economic 

 purposes may be said to have been practically unknown 

 at any time, except on a very diminutive scale. This has 

 been brought about by several causes, but the most 

 important of them have doubtless been, first, the great 

 increase in the population of the country during the last 

 two centuries ; second, the development of industries on 

 the one hand, and the breeding of live-stock on the other, 

 Avhich have tended to throw the importance of forestry 

 into the background ; and third, the facilities which have 

 existed during the past century for the importation of 

 cheap timber from other countries. Which of these 

 factors has operated most powerfully it is difficult to say, 

 but the fact remains that a forest, in the ordinary sense of 

 the word, and apart from one or two instances, does not 

 now exist in the British Isles. The fertile parts of Great 

 Britain and Ireland to-day present a land surface covered 

 with small holdings, parks, pleasure-grounds, groves, 

 villages, towns, and cities, between which no room exists 

 for such forests as can be found on the Continent of 

 Europe. Spaces of similar extent in Britain can only be 

 found on the bare hills and mountains, and the question 

 of timber growing on these is one more for the future 

 than the past or present. 



For the absence of British forests on a continental scale 

 we must blame partly the alienation of land from the State 



