MODERN FOREST ECONOMY. 4193 
relative to agricultural development by the question, What 
measures should be adopted to arrest the destruction 
which has taken. place in several localities of woods which 
are private property, which threatens to cut off the supply 
of wood in such localities, and to produce an injurious 
influence on the climate; and how far does it come within 
the legitimate duty of the State to watch over the conser- 
vation of the forests, and aid in the management of these 
in the provinces of the kingdom ? 
A Committee appointed at that meeting to take the 
whole subject into consideration submitted that a better 
knowledge of the value of woods, and of the treatment 
which should be given to them, should be secured by the 
establishment of Forest Schools; that, as a branch of social 
economy, there should be introduced an improved forest 
economy; that in the several lins, districts, or counties of 
the country, there should be organised. a proper game and 
forest service, not only for the protection of the whole of 
the forests belonging to the Crown, but, by friendly co- 
operation, to help private proprietors of forests in the 
division and protection of their forest territory ; that the 
destruction of growing trees should be considered a misde- 
meanour injurious, and punishable by fine; and that all 
burning of woods with a view to agriculture in moors and 
outlying territory should be prohibited, as the conversion 
of such woodland into arable land and meadows in connec- 
tion with the clearing of tracts of woodland by private 
proprietors must, in its consequence, in a certain way 
diminish the future growth of wood. 
The subject came under the consideration of Parliament, 
and the Senators who discussed the question in the Parlia- 
ment of 1854 agreed generally with several of the views 
advanced, and considering it competent to the State to 
restrict the power of private proprietors in the disposal of 
their woods, on the ground that this was necessary to 
secure the reproduction of forests; they could not avoid 
seeing the injarious results which were following the bad 
