viii Preface 



be drawn. I have therefore had no hesitation in boldly 

 acknowledging the German sources from which many of the 

 lessons I am trying to teach have been learned. 



With regard to Forestry, Britain stands in a very peculiar 

 position. Although she has now only a very insignificant area 

 under woodlands in comparison with any other great European 

 power, yet all her national and commercial prosperity is 

 mainly due to her forest wealth first of all, in the time of 

 the formation of the coal-measures, and later on again in the 

 days of the ' wooden walls of England.' For what could the 

 ' Hearts of Oak ' have achieved in the way of naval supremacy 

 without the ships of home-grown Oak? It is not because 

 Germany has a forest area fully eleven times as large as the 

 woodlands and nurseries of Great Britain and Ireland that we 

 must look mainly to that country for instruction and guidance 

 with regard to Forestry; it is because at Universities, 

 Academies, Institutes, and Forest Schools, many Professors of 

 high scientific attainments are engaged not only in teaching 

 the Science of Forestry and the Art of Sylviculture, but also 

 in individual and conjoint efforts and investigations for 

 ascertaining the natural laws which regulate the growth of 

 timber-crops. 



In Britain, however, nothing of this sort is going on. There 

 is no body of men of anything like good scientific attainments 

 who are known to be carrying on investigations that have for 

 their object the improvement of our natural knowledge regard- 

 ing the growth of timber. Times have changed since one 

 of the oldest and most remarkable of the English works on 

 Forestry, John Evelyn's classic Silva or a Discourse of Forest 

 Trees, was read by him in its first form as a paper before 

 the Royal Society in October, 1664; for at that time we 

 were certainly abreast of continental knowledge. But, with the 



