FOREST AND FORESTRY DEFINED. 91 



ests to the future welfare of the community lead 

 to a rational treatment of forests as such for con- 

 tinuity and to the application of the principles 

 embodied in the science of forestry. 



There existed some knowledge as to the nature of 

 forest growth and the advantages of its systematic 

 use among the Romans and Greeks. Ancus Mar- 

 cius, the fourth king of Rome (about 640 B.C.), 

 claimed the forests as a public domain and placed 

 them under special officers. Later, under the re- 

 public, they were in special charge of the consuls. 

 Subsequently the continuous wars seem to have 

 wiped out not only the administrative features but 

 the forests themselves, and the Italians of modern 

 times until lately had no more conception, of the 

 importance of the forest cover than the people of 

 the United States, so that Italy to-day furnishes 

 about as good an object lesson as any country of 

 the evil effects of forest devastation. 



The real art of forestry is unquestionably of 

 Teutonic origin, or was at least conceived rather 

 early among the Germanic tribes ; the first attempts 

 at it seem to antedate even Charlemagne's time. 



Long before the royal prerogative of the chase 

 lent an incentive to conservative treatment, there 

 existed among the communistic villagers, who were -\ 

 aggregated in the so-called " Mark," owning all 

 their land in common, crude but systematic at- 

 tempts at rational utilization and even reproduction. 

 The amount of wood that might be harvested with- 



