14 PRACTICAL FOREST MANAGEMENT. 



first there were no trained officers available, and from L%0 to 1869 

 the administrative staff was recruited largely from military officers, 

 engineers and others who were fond of a wild and adventurous life 

 in difficult surroundings. And a wild and difficult time these 

 pioneers of forest work certainly had, as the death statistics of the 

 early years of the service abundantly prove. They had first to 

 survey, examine and demarcate the great expanses of forest, to 

 organise their protection. against fire and damage, and they had 

 to fight perpetually against the customs and malpractices of 

 generations, incendiarism, uncontrolled grazing, the vested interests 

 of the timber contractors, and all the other influences which had 

 reduced the United Provinces forests to the ruined state in which 

 they were taken over, and from which they have been half a century 

 and more in recovering. The present and future generations owe 

 a great debt of gratitude to this handful of pioneers who in many 

 cases at the sacrifice of their lives rescued the great forest estates 

 of the United Provinces from destruction, and who, with their 

 successors, have assured and built up for the present and future 

 such a splendid heritage. 



The detailed history of each Forest division from the earliest 

 times, so far as it has been possible to compile it, has been given in 

 Part I of the various working plans and need not be reproduced 

 here. These histories present a long struggle between the 

 advocates of forestry and their opponents. As time has passed the 

 ideals of scientific forestry have been more and more recognised, but 

 it cannot be said that victory is yet complete or that the country 

 as a whole realises the necessity for an enlightened forest 

 policy. 



The first From 1869 began a small but steady stream of forest officers 



trained first in tne French and German Schools of Forestry (a^id 

 later at Coopers Hill and Oxford), and with their arrival it was 

 possible to make a start in scientific and systematic forest manage- 

 ment by the preparation of the first working plans, and between 



