322 THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FOREST 



and wider circles, and woods more and more remote fell 

 under the axe. At one period the Carron Iron-works Com- 

 pany at Falkirk in Stirlingshire, purchased for ^"900 a 

 wood in Glenmoriston, on the north side of Loch Ness, in 

 spite of the fact that it was distant eight miles of very bad 

 road from the waterway of Loch Ness, and that the timber 

 had to be carried thence to Carron. The Coalecken furnace 

 on Loch Fyne turned out every year 700 tons of pig iron, 

 and, as Macadam relates in 1887, 



the older inhabitants in the district still remember seeing the string of 

 from 30 to 40 ponies laden with charcoal coming over the hill road from 

 Lochawe, 'which is distant about 10 miles. The material was contained in 

 bags which were placed on a large cradle saddle to protect the sides of the 

 animal. The work ceased in 1813. 



At first the furnace was taken to the forest, latterly the 

 forest had to be taken to the furnace. 



During the past century, the use of wood for smelting 

 gradually ceased, but not until the discovery of suitable 

 woods and the longer transport of the timber became 

 matters of insuperable difficulty, and not before many "fair 

 forrests and schawis schene" throughout Scotland had bowed 

 their heads to the woodsman's axe. 



AGRICULTURE AND THE FOREST 



It is evident that the progress of civilization as embodied 

 in the domestication of animals and the development of 

 agriculture has been gained in great part at the expense of 

 the virgin forest. The process is an old one, extending from 

 the times when prehistoric man surrounded his settlements 

 with clearings for his meagre fields, to the agricultural boom 

 of the eighteen-sixties when, for example in Aberdeenshire, 

 considerable areas of woodland were transformed into arable 

 land. Even the pasturage of Sheep has had an enormous 

 influence, for much of the "natural pasture" of the uplands 

 has been gained from the original forest. There is little 

 to show that the pastures of the southern uplands of Scotland 

 were once covered with forest wherein the Red Deer and 

 the Roe gave sport to kings. Yet the disappearance of the 

 forest can be traced through the centuries keeping pace with 

 the increase of the shepherd's flocks. Even in recent times, 

 in the Highlands, forest has disappeared before the advance 



