WOODLAND WORK AND WORKING PLANS i8i 



more attractive conditions under which they work, and the 

 degree of mental exercise demanded by the work itself, are of 

 equal influence in securing their allegiance to the calling. 



The most familiar, though not necessarily the most 

 important, branch of English wood-work is that of timber- 

 felling. It was certainly this branch of work which em- 

 ployed the earliest generations of woodmen ; for, when forests 

 more or less covered the surface of the country, the first 

 problem which confronted semi-civilised man was the clearing 

 away of the forest growth, to make way for cultivated fields 

 or pasturage for cattle and sheep. Probably the man of the 

 Bronze or Iron Age was the first to use the axe, for it is only 

 of that metal that implements capable of cutting timber 

 could have been made. But the earliest reference to timber- 

 cutting in history dates from the Eoman period. In a.d. 84 

 the Eoman general Agricola defeated Galgaeus, the British 

 chief, and before the battle Tacitus relates that he harangued 

 his followers in the words : " Our limbs and our bodies are 

 worn out in cutting wood and draining marshes." The hard 

 lessons learnt by the British as slaves to the Eomans 

 probably proved useful to them after the conquerors had 

 retired, and from that period onward timber-cutting would 

 be more or less common as a rural occupation. Canoes of 

 British workmanship have been unearthed from time to time 

 bearing axe or chisel marks, and formed of the hollowed-out 

 trunks of large trees, and other remains of timbered structures 

 tell the same tale. 



At a much later period (the thirteenth century) the Duke 

 of Lancaster marched an army into Scotland and set twenty- 

 four thousand axes to work to destroy the Scottish forests, the 

 squad employed being one which any timber merchant might 

 envy. We thus find the English woodcutter has a fairly 

 ancient origin, and to have figured to some extent in the 

 history of his country. 



The English woodman of the present day differs little in 

 appearance or methods of working from his predecessors in 

 the past centuries. Cutting timber is one of those operations 

 which has not been greatly altered by invention or science, 

 and even the American lumberman still continues to use the 

 axe as the handiest tool for individual workmen. 



