REPORT ON FORESTS. 295 
advantage with implements which are decidedly clumsy. And 
then, too, all sorts of traditions and customs, rights and servi- 
tudes have been handed down from generation to generation. 
The poor peasant is often fettered by these inheritances, which 
he joyfully leaves behind him when he enters a new and fresh 
land. 
In parts of France forest fires are still quite common, even on 
land which has been reforested, while in other parts wood is too 
precious to burn even for fuel. In Italy lumber is one of the 
scarcest of materials, although there are vast areas of waste-land 
where wood could be raised to advantage, especially on the 
bare mountain peaks. It is a land of few wood-workers and 
many masons, where even the vine-props are often granite.* The 
supply and demand are more local in Europe, and transportation 
suffers from all sorts of hindrances. A board would pass 
through more vicissitudes in going from Germany to Italy than 
a bundle of shingles would in reaching New York from Oregon. 
‘This is not so of water transportation, which is of course less 
hampered by governmental interferences. 
In many districts in Europe the inhabitants depend upon turf 
for fuel, which exists in almost exhaustless quantities in the 
heathlands of the north, and even in Germany it is not uncom. 
mon to see peasants drying cow-dung for the purpose. 
In parts of the Plain of northwestern Europe, under the peat, 
have been found pine stumps and the stone implements of the 
aborigines. Another page in its history is illustrated by oak 
stumps, among which have been found bronze axes and other 
implements. Here and there are beds of peat buried under the 
sand, indicating that the soil has been shifted hither and thither 
by the wind. It is generally believed, however, that the great 
heathlands of northwestern Europe were never densely forested, 
and that the trees existed in the form of groups here and there. 
Such places were well suited to the nomadic pastoral stage 
of man's existence. This, to a certain extent, still lingers in 
the form of the shepherd tending his “snucken™ or little black 
sheep on these broad heath-covered plains. There, too, one 
often sees a bee-keeper surrounded by many hives of little black 
bees, which he moves from place to place for fresh pastures. 
**¢ Forestiere’” in Italian means a stranger—that is, a person from the forest. 
