CAUSES OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FOREST. 279 
by fire or tlie axe, because they afforded a retreat to enemies, 
robbers, and outlaws, and this practice is said to have been 
resorted to in the Mediterranean provinces of France as re¬ 
cently as the time of Napoleon I.* The severe and even san¬ 
guinary legislation, by which some of the governments of 
mediaeval Europe, as well as of earlier ages, protected the 
woods, was dictated by a love of the chase, or the fear of a 
scarcity of fuel and timber. The laws of almost every Euro¬ 
pean state more or less adequately secure the permanence of 
the forest; and I believe Spain is the only European land 
wdiich has not made some public provision for the protection 
and restoration of the woods—the only country whose people 
systematically war upon the garden of God.f 
* For many instances of this sort, see Beoqtjekel, Des Glimots , etc., pp. 
301-303. In 1664, the Swedes made an incursion into Jutland and felled a 
considerable extent of forest. After they retired, a survey of the damage was 
had, and the report is still extant. The number of trees cut was found to 
be 120,000, and as an account was kept of the numbers of each species of 
tree, the document is of interest in the history of the forest, as showing 
the relative proportions between the different trees which composed the 
wood. See Vaupell, Bdgens Indvandring , p. 35, and Notes , p. 55. 
t Since writing this paragraph, I have fallen upon—and that in a Span¬ 
ish author—one of those odd coincidences of thought which every man 
of miscellaneous reading so often meets with. Antonio Ponz ( Viage de 
EspaUa , i, prologo, p. lxiii), says: “ Nor would this be so great an evil, 
were not some of them declaimers against trees , thereby proclaiming them¬ 
selves, in some sort, enemies of the works of God, who gave us the leafy 
abode of Paradise to dwell in, where we should be even now sojourning, 
but for the first sin, which expelled us from it.” 
I do not know at what period the two Castiles were bared of their 
woods, but the Spaniard’s proverbial “ hatred of a tree ” is of long stand¬ 
ing. Herrera vigorously combats this foolish prejudice ; and Ponz, in the 
prologue to the ninth volume of his journey, says that many carried it so 
far as wantonly to destroy the shade and ornamental trees planted by the 
municipal authorities. “ Trees,” they contended, and still believe, “ breed 
birds, and birds eat up the grain.” Our author argues against the suppo¬ 
sition of the “ breeding of birds by trees,” which, he says, is as absurd as 
to believe that an elm tree can yield pears ; and he charitably suggests that 
the expression is, perhaps, a maniere de dire , a popular phrase, signifying 
simply that trees harbor birds. 
