4 BRITISH FOREST TREES 



their produce began this gradually diminished, until such 

 lessened capability of reproduction, coupled with the grow- 

 ing restriction of woodland area consequent on the increase 

 of agriculture and of the agricultural population, and the 

 increasing demands for timber, gave serious cause for 

 reflection, and necessitated the adoption of measures for the 

 protection of the remaining woodlands. 



In different countries varying local circumstances called 

 for the adoption of protective measures, which differed of 

 course in detail, but in general the methods adopted had a 

 considerable degree of similarity. A beginning was usually 

 made by the reigning power laying tracts of country not 

 necessarily woodlands, but generally including extensive 

 wooded areas under ban in order to preserve them as 

 hunting grounds. Thus l at the end of the eighth century 

 the old German word Forst? corrupted through the old 

 Norman form Forct into the legal Latin forestare, to place 

 under ban, became foresta, forestis, which up till then had 

 merely denoted a royal hunting ground, but henceforth was 

 applied to all such other lands as were proscribed or laid 

 under ban as regards cultivation, the right of chase being 

 vested in the king, or in those specially permitted by him to 

 exercise it. Both in England and Scotland the early forest 

 laws had reference principally to the protection of game. 



In England, in its original and strictly legal sense therefore 

 a FOREST was an area (not necessarily woodland) for the 

 sake of the chase placed under the royal ban with regard to 

 cultivation, and subject to forest law in place of the common 



1 Schwappach's Forstgeschichte in Lorey's Hanilbnch der Forstiviss- 

 cnschaft, 1886, vol. i., p. 147. 



2 According to Grimm, Forst was derived from the old High German 

 Foraha = Anglo-Saxon Ftthr = modern German F'ohrc Scots Fir, 

 the principal tree throughout the great north German plain. See 

 rakn Mnx Miiller's Chips from a German Workshop, 1875, v l- i y -j 

 p. 518. 



