FOREST EXPLOITATION "JARDINAGE." 37 



By the reckless destruction of forests, by what I may 

 call Primitive Jardinage, forests of vast extent have dis- 

 appeared, and others in several of our colonies are dis- 

 appearing, to the detriment of the interests of all concerned, 

 even of those who are hoping to enrich themselves by the 

 operation an operation similar, in some respects, to that 

 of the boy in the fable who thought to get rich at once by 

 killing the goose which laid the golden eggs. 



It has been alleged and maintained, that by a natural 

 process, unprotected land sooner or later becomes covered 

 with arborescent vegetation, that thus must it have been 

 in all lands and in all times, and that most of the lands 

 now covered with herbage and grass must have been at 

 one time covered with woods a wilderness, and not a 

 desert. The allegation is not made without foundation 

 it may in its absolute form of expression be a great exag- 

 geration of the truth, but history warrants the conclusion 

 that a great part of Europe now naked and bare was once 

 covered with forests. 



The existing forests of Germany, the Thuringerwald in 

 Gotha, the Schwartzwald or Black Forest in Baden, the 

 Oderswald in Hesse, the Spessart, between Aschaifenburg 

 and Wurtzburg, and the forests in the Austrian Alps, are 

 all of them only fragmentary remains of the great Hir- 

 cynian forest, which originally covered the greater part of 

 Continental Europe, and was extensively diffused over the 

 districts now known as Germany, Poland, Hungary, &c. 

 In Caesar's time it extended from the borders of Alsatia 

 and Switzerland to Transylvania, and was computed to be 

 sixty days' journey long and nine broad. In England 

 memorials of forests are found in names of villages and 

 districts near which no forest now exists, and in traditions 

 of forests preserved in story and in song. Once a land 

 like that now covered with what are called the vast and 

 interminable forests of America, Europe is now a land of 

 cities and of fields^ and a similar change is taking place in 

 several of our colonies and dependencies. The forests, 

 like the black man, and like the wild beasts of the field, 



