INTRODUCTION, 



" The aggrandizement and security of the powers of 

 one's own country is the duty of every man,"* says the 

 illustrious " Hero of a Hundred Fights." The posses- 

 sion of a large store of timber, and of trees growing to 

 timber, on the British Isles, is unquestionably now, as 

 heretofore, necessary to the nation to maintain its naval 

 and commercial power, prosperity and security. 



Russia and the United States possess vast power to 

 annoy our timber trade, and to interpose the most 

 serious obstacles to it in the Baltic and Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence ; and were such power to be exercised 

 simultaneously, it is impossible to calculate the amount 

 of inconvenience and mischief that would ensue. 

 Believing the prevailing system of planting trees and 

 managing timber to be erroneous, and likely ultimately 



* Duke of Wellington's Despatches, end of Vol. 10. 



