Section 



PROTECTION OF WOODLANDS AGAINST HUMAN 

 AGENCIES, OR THE ACTIONS OF MEN. 



105. Nearer Consideration of such Dangers. 



Daring the long course of centuries the woodlands have 

 certainly been much more disturbed and interfered with in their 

 normal growth and development by human agency than by any 

 other organic or inorganic causes. How many woodland tracts 

 have been damaged and often totally ruined or cleared entirely 

 by their owners through excessive utilisation of timber and of dead 

 foliage for litter, by over-grazing, by neglected or badly carried out 

 reproductive measures, and by imprudent clearances, quite dis- 

 regardful of their ultimate consequences ? 



The forester is helpless to ward off from the woodlands under 

 his charge the effects of injudicious operations determined on by 

 the proprietor, but the principles of Sylviculture, of the Utilisation 

 of Forest Produce, and of the Management of Forests, teach him 

 how the productive capacity of the timber-producing tracts can 

 best be maintained or increased, how the forest produce may be 

 harvested and disposed of in the most economical and advantageous 

 manner, and how the fellings and reproduction throughout the 

 whole growing-stock can be so ordered and arranged as best 

 to satisfy the requirements of the owner, whilst duly safeguarding 

 and protecting the productive capacity of the soil. In most 

 countries in which forests occupy any extensive portion of the 

 total area, as in France, Germany, India, &c., there are legal 

 enactments or Forest Laws for the preservation of the woodlands 

 against mischief and other more serious actions of men ; but in 

 Britain there is no necessity for any such special machinery, and 

 actions affecting the proprietary rights in, over, and with regard 



