FOREST DEVASTATION. 215 
This also causes a great want of fuel, particularly in the 
drier districts, where turf is unknown. 
_‘The climate also suffers in this extremely dry rocky 
district. In winter there is no shelter from the icy winds, 
and everything is scorched in summer, unless.the weather 
be very wet.’ There follow local statistics which I do not 
think any of my readers would find interesting. 
‘Romsdal Bailiwick.—The amount of wood is almost the 
same as in Nordmore, with only this difference—that 
Romsdal has always possessed fewer fir woods, and even 
these are rapidly disappearing. In the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries Britain imported largely from this 
district ; and its near neighbourhood to scantly wooded 
Soudmore, has occasioned a further drain on its resousces. 
The inhabitants say that the day of the fir is past, that it will 
not now thrive. This is a mistake. Good management 
is all that is needed, both climate and shelter being pretty 
good, and many trees rare in Nordmore are here quite 
common, The people are economical in their own use of 
the timber, though using unhewn timber for their houses, 
or at most, with only two planks cut off. Here also the 
climate has changed for the worse, wherever the woods 
have been cut down, and the people are themselves aware 
of this. There follow statistics of the several parishes. 
‘ Soudmore Bailiwick—The whole of this district is very 
mountainous, some of the peaks being 4000 feet high. 
There is only a small area fit for the growth of timber, 
and even this is much exposed to both sea-storms and 
avalanches. Sheep and cattle go at large, and greatly add 
to the destruction of the young trees. All these circum- 
stances, combined with communal privileges, caused the 
fir woods to vanish long ago. In fact, the scarcity of trees 
is by the country people said to have been the work of 
enemies in the olden time; but Ido not believe this, The 
fragments of charcoal still to be found scattered on the 
fields may bave either been purposely manufactured, or 
the trees may have been accidentally burned’ 
