I9II.] 



385 



FORESTRY IN NORWAY. 

 S. BuRTT Meyer. 



The natural inaccessibility of her interior and the sparseness 

 of her population have handicapped Norway in commercial 

 competition, but, locked up in a thousand valleys, lies her 

 capital, the forests of spruce and pine. Time was when the 

 great trees fringed her coasts and spread to the snow-line of 

 her mountains, but now wide tracts have been cleared, and 

 almost every hillside bears the mark of the woodman's axe. 



The first mention of trade in timber comes from the 12th 

 century, while a century later an export trade with Holland 

 was flourishing. Up to about the year 1500, when the first 

 saw-mill was established, all timber was split into the required 

 dimensions, but with the new machinery came a marked 

 increase in trade. After the Great Fire of 1666 London 

 imported large quantities of Norwegian timber, although, 

 two centuries earlier, Henry the Third is recorded to have 

 purchased from Norway a ship-load of pine-panelling for the 

 renovation of Windsor Castle. 



With the growing demand, however, came a reckless in- 

 difference to the future; the grasping merchants of the 

 Hanseatic League, who dominated Norwegian commerce for 

 two centuries, burnt what they could not sell, baring the once 

 green coastline ; with the introduction of the steam-saw great 

 havoc was wrought on the more accessible woods of the 

 interior, and, crowning all, the modern demand for paper 

 pulp has led to an alarming diminution in the supply. The 

 drain of five centuries has not, however, impoverished the 

 land beyond recovery, as some authorities would have us 

 believe. There are still great tracts of fine timber land ; there 

 are even larger areas that, with scientific care, are gradually 

 re-assuming their proper density of trees. 



In attempting to describe the progress of scientific forestry 

 in Norway it will be enough to sketch the growth and work 

 of the Government Service, together with instances of private 

 enterprise that call for attention. 



The writer recently spent a vear studying the forest life 

 of Norway, and through the kindness of Herr Jelstrup, of 

 the Bureau of Forestry, and Woods Managers Kiasr and 



L) I ) 



