LITERATURE OF THE FOREST. 
217 
forgotten. The legislation of the Middle Ages in Europe is 
full of absurd provisions concerning the forests, which sover¬ 
eigns sometimes destroyed because they furnished a retreat for 
rebels and robbers, sometimes protected because they were 
necessary to breed stags and boars for the chase, and some¬ 
times spared with the more enlightened view of securing a 
supply of timber and of fuel to future generations.* It was 
reserved to later ages to appreciate their geographical import¬ 
ance, and it is only in very recent times, only in a few Eu¬ 
ropean countries, that the too general felling of the woods has 
been recognized as the most destructive among the many 
causes of the physical deterioration of the earth. 
Condition of the Forest , and its Literature in different 
Countries. 
The literature of the forest, which in England and America 
has not yet become sufficiently extensive to be known as a 
special branch of authorship, counts its thousands of volumes 
in Germany, Italy, and France. It is in the latter country, 
perhaps, that the relations of the woods to the regular drain¬ 
age of the soil, and especially to the permanence of the natural 
configuration of terrestrial surface, have been most thoroughly 
investigated. On the other hand, the purely economical as¬ 
pects of sylviculture have been most satisfactorily expounded, 
* Stanley, citing Selden, De Jure Naturally book vi, and Fabricius, 
Cod. Pseudap. V. T ., i, 874, mentions a remarkable Jewish tradition of un¬ 
certain but unquestionably ancient date, which is among the oldest evi¬ 
dences of public respect for the woods, and of enlightened views of their 
importance and proper treatment : 
“ To Joshua a fixed Jewish tradition ascribed ten decrees, laying down 
precise rules, which were instituted to protect the property of each tribe 
and of each householder from lawless depredation. Cattle, of a smaller 
kind, were to be allowed to graze in thick woods, not in thin woods; in 
woods, no kind of cattle without the owner’s consent. Sticks and branches 
might be gathered by any Hebrew, but not cut. * * * Woods might be 
pruned, provided they were not olives or fruit trees, and that there was 
sufficient shade in the place .”—Lectures on the History of the Jewish 
Church , part i, p. 271. 
