Part 2

The forest was undoubtedly the earliest home of mankind, its edible products forming its principal value. Its wild animals developed the hunter, the chase first furnishing means of subsistence and then exhilaration and pleasure. Next, it was the mast and, in its openings, the pasture which gave to the forest its value for the herder, and only last, with the development into settled communities and more highly civilized conditions of life, did the wood product become its main contribution toward that civilization. Finally, in the refinement of cultural conditions in densely settled countries is added its influence on soil, climate and water conditions.

Although there is no written history, there is little doubt that these were the phases in the appreciation of woodlands in the earliest development of mankind, for we find the same phases repeated in our own times in all newly settled countries.

As agriculture develops, the need for farming ground overshadows the usefulness of the forest in all these directions, and it is cleared away; moreover, as population remains scanty, a wasteful use of its stores forms the rule, until necessity arises for greater care in the exploitation, for more rational distribution of farm and forest area, and finally for intentional reproduction of wood as a useful crop.

Correspondingly forest conditions change from the densely forested hills and mountain slopes during the age of the nomad and hunter to the “enclaves” or patches of field and pasture enclosed by the forest of the first farmers, then follows the opening up of the valleys and lowlands, while the hill and mountain farms may return to forest, and finally, with the increase of population and civilization in valleys and plains, a reduction of the forest area and a decrease of forest wealth results.

1. _Forest Conditions._

While we have many isolated references to forest conditions and progress of forest exploitation among the ancients in the writings of poets and historians, these are generally too brief to permit us to gain a very clear picture of the progress of forest history; except in isolated cases, they furnish only glimpses, allowing us to fill in the rest to some extent by guess.

That the countries occupied and known to the ancients, even Spain and Palestine, were originally well-wooded there seems little doubt, although in the drier regions and on the drier limestone soils, the forest was perhaps open, as is usual under such conditions, and truly arid, forestless regions were also found where they exist now. Although it has been customary to point out some of the Mediterranean and Eastern countries as having become deserts and depopulated through deforestation, and although this is undoubtedly true for some parts, as Mount Lebanon and Syria, generalization in this respect is dangerous.

We know, however, that by the 11th century before Christ, in Palestine, Asia Minor and Greece, especially in the neighborhood of thriving cities, the forest cover had vanished to a large extent and building timber for the temples at Tyre and Sidon had to be brought long distances from Mount Lebanon, whose wealth of cedar was also freely drawn upon for ship timber and other structures. Although about 465 B.C. Artaxerxes I, having recognized the pending exhaustion of this mountain forest, had attempted to regulate the cutting of timber, the exploitation had by 333 B.C. progressed to such an extent that Alexander the Great found at least the south slope exhausted and almost woodless.

The destruction by axe and fire of the celebrated forests of Sharon, Carmel and Bashan is the theme of the prophet Isaiah writing about 590 B.C.; and the widespread devastation of large forest areas during the Jewish wars is depicted by Josephus. In Greece, the Persian wars are on record as causes of widespread forest destruction. Yet in other parts, as on the island of Cyprus, which, originally densely wooded, had rapidly lost its forest wealth during Cleopatra’s time through the development of mining and metallurgical works, ship building and clearing for farms, the kings seemed to have been able to protect the remnants for a long time, so that respectable forest cover exists even to date.

The Romans seem to have had still a surplus of ship timber at their command in the third and second centuries before Christ, when they did not hesitate to burn the warships of the Carthaginians (203 B.C.) and of the Syrians (189 B.C.), although it may be that other considerations forced these actions. Denuded hills and scarcity of building timber in certain parts are mentioned at the end of the third century before Christ, and that the need for conservative use of timber resources had arrived also appears from the fact that when (167 B.C.) the Romans had brought Macedonia under their sway, the cutting of ship timber in the extensive forests of that country was prohibited. Although at that time the Roman State forests were still quite extensive, it is evident that under the system of renting these for the mast and pasture and for the exploitation of their timber to companies of contractors, their devastation must have progressed rapidly. Yet, on the whole, with local exceptions, Italy remained well wooded until the Christian era.

In Spain, according to Diodorus Siculus (about 100 B.C.), the Southern provinces were densely wooded when about 200 B.C. the Romans first took possession; but soon after a great forest fire starting from the Pyrenees ran over the country, exposing deposits of silver ore, which invited a large influx of miners, the cause of reckless deforestation of the country. The interior of this peninsula, however, was probably always forestless or at least scantily wooded.

While through colonization, exploitation, fire and other abuse, the useful forest area was decimated in many parts, the location of the Mediterranean peninsular countries was such that wood supplies could be readily secured by water from distant parts, and the _lignarii_ or wood merchants of Italy drew their supplies even from India by way of Alexandria; they went for Ash to Asia Minor; for Cedar to Cilicia; Paphlagonia, Liguria and Mauritania became the great wood export countries. It is interesting to note that a regular wood market existed in Rome, as in Jerusalem, and at the former place firewood was sold by the pound (75c per 200 lbs., in Cicero’s time). At the same time that the causes of devastation were at work the forest area also increased in some parts, recovering ground lost during wars and through the neglect of farms by natural seeding; much less by active effort, although planting of trees in parks, vineyards and groves was early practiced to a limited extent.

2. _Development of Property._

As to development of forest property we have also only fragmentary information. Nomads do not know soil as property. When they become settled farmers the plowland, the vineyard or olive grove and orchard are recognized as private property, but all the rest remains common property or nobody’s in particular; and even the private property was not at first entirely exclusive. Hence for a long time (and in some parts even to date) the exclusive property right in forests is not fully established. At least the right to hunt over all territory without restriction was possessed by everybody, although an owner might prevent undesirable hunters from entering his property if it was enclosed. The setting aside of hunting grounds for private use came into existence only in later Roman times. But woodland parks, planted or otherwise, like the “paradises” of the Persian kings and the _nemora_ of the Romans and Carthaginians were early a part of the private property of princes and grandees from which others were excluded.

Forests formed a barrier and defense against outsiders, or a hiding place in case of need, hence we find in early times frontier forests, or as the Germans called them “Grenzmarken,” set aside or designated for such purposes and withdrawn from use, and sometimes additionally fortified by ditches and other artificial barriers. Even before the “Grenzmarken” of the Germans the forest was used by Greeks, Romans and still earlier among Asiatic tribes to designate the limit of peoples as well as to serve as a bulwark against attacks from invaders.

Again, the pantheistic ideas of the ancients led to consecrating not only trees but groves to certain gods: holy groves were frequent among the Greeks and Romans, and also among other pagans; the Jews, however, were enjoined to eradicate these emblems of paganism in the promised land with axe and fire, and they did so more or less, removal and re-establishment of holy groves varying according to the religious sentiment of their rulers. Altogether, in Palestine the forests were left to the free and unrestricted use of the Israelites.

Out of religious conceptions and priestly shrewdness arose church property in farms and forests among the Indian Brahmans, the Ethiopians and Egyptians, as also among Greeks and Romans.

It appears that the oriental kings were exclusive owners of all unappropriated or public forests. This was certainly the case with the princes of India and of Persia, and such ownership can be proved definitely in many other parts, as in the case of the forests of Lebanon, of Cyprus, and of various forest areas in Asia Minor.

That in the Greek republics the forests were mainly public property seems to be likely; for Attica, at least, this is true without doubt.

While the first Roman kings seem to have owned royal domains, which were distributed among the people after the expulsion of the kings, the public property which came to the republic as a result of conquest was in most cases at once transferred to private hands, either for homesteads of colonists, or in recognition of services of soldiers and other public officers, or to mollify the conquered, or by sale, or for rent, not to mention the rights acquired by squatters. The rents were usually farmed out to collectors (_publicani_) or to corporations formed of these. Livy, however, mentions also State forests in which the cutting was regulated, probably by merely reserving the ship timber.

That occasionally single cities and other smaller municipal units owned forest properties in common seems also established.

Private forest properties connected with farm estates existed in Ethiopia, in Arabia, among the Greeks and among the Romans at home as well as in their colonies. Especially pasture woods (_saltus_) connected with small and large estates (_latifundia_) into which probably most forest areas near settlements were turned, are frequently mentioned as in private ownership; but also other private forests existed.

The institution of servitudes or rights of user (_usus_ and _usus-fructus_) and a considerable amount of law regarding the conditions under which they were exercised and regarding their extinguishment were in existence among the Romans in the first centuries of the Christian era.

3. _Forest Use._

Restrictions in the use of woods were not entirely absent, but with the exception of reserving ship timber in the State forests, they refer only to special classes of forest.

In the frontier forests reserved for defensive purposes, timber cutting was forbidden. And in the holy groves set aside by private or public declaration no wood could be cut thereafter, being in the latter case considered nobody’s property but sanctified and dedicated to religious use (_res sacra_), and whoever removed any wood from them was considered a “patricide,” except the cutting be done for purposes of improvement (thinnings) and after a prescribed sacrifice.

With the extension of Christendom the holy trees and groves became the property of the emperors, who sometimes substituted Christian holiness for the pagan, and retained the restrictions which had preserved them. Thus the cutting and selling of cypress and other trees in the holy grove near Antioch, and of _Persea_ trees in Egypt generally (which had been deemed holy under the Pharaos) was prohibited under penalty of five pounds gold, unless a special permit had been obtained.

In Attica as well as in Rome the theory that the State cannot satisfactorily carry on any business was well established. Hence, the State forests were rented out under a system of time rent or a perpetual license, the renters after exploiting the timber usually subletting the culled woods merely for the pasture, except where coppice could be profitably utilized. The officials, with titles referring to their connection with the woods, as the Roman _saltuarii_ or the Greek _hyloroi_ (forestguards) and _villici silvarum_, the overseers, both grades taken from the slaves, had hardly even police functions.

_Forest management_ proper, _i.e._, regulated use for continuity, except in coppice, seems nowhere to have been practiced by the ancients, although _arboriculture_ in artificial plantations was well established and occasionally even attempts at replacement in forest fashion seem to have been made deliberately. Not only were many arboricultural practices of to-day well known to them, but also a number of the still unsettled controversies in this field were then already subjects of discussion.

The culling system of taking only the most desirable kinds, trees and cuts, which until recently has characterized our American lumbering methods was naturally the one under which the mixed forest was utilized. Fire used in the pasture woods for the same purposes as with us effectively prevented reproduction in these, and destroyed gradually the remnants of old trees.

Only where for park and hunting purposes some care was bestowed upon the woodland, was reproduction purposely attempted, as, for instance, when in a hunting park an underwood was to be established for game cover.

The treatment of the coppice and methods of sowing and planting were well understood in spite of the lack of natural sciences. Whatever forestry practice existed was based merely on empirical observations and was taught in the books on agriculture as a part of farm practice.

Silviculture was mainly developed in connection with the coppice, which was systematically practiced for the purpose of growing vineyard stakes, especially with chestnut (_castanetum_), oak (_quercetum_), and willow (_salicetum_), while the _arbustum_ denoted the plantings of trees for the support of grapes, and incidentally for the foliage used as cattle feed, still in vogue in modern Italy.

This planting of vine supports was done with saplings of elm, poplar and some other species; by pollarding and by a well devised system of pruning, these were gradually prepared and maintained in proper form for their purpose.

The coppice seems to have been systematically managed in Attica as well as in Italy in regular fellings; the mild climate producing sprouts and root suckers readily without requiring much care, even conifers (cypress and fir) reproducing in this manner.

The oak coppice was managed in 7 year rotation, the chestnut in 5 year, and the willow in 3 year rotation.

Yield and profitableness are discussed, and the practice of thinnings is known, but only for the purpose of removing and using the dead material.

Forest protection was poorly developed: of insects little, of fungi no knowledge existed. Hand-picking was applied against caterpillars, also ditches into which the beetles were driven and then covered; the use of hogs in fighting insects was also known. That goats were undesirable in the woods had been observed. Some remarkable precocious physiological knowledge or rather philosophy existed: it was recognized that frost produces drought and that a remedy is to loosen the soil, aerating the roots, to drain or water as the case might require, and to prune; but also sap letting was prescribed. Against hail, dead owls were to be hung up; against ants, which were deemed injurious, ashes with vinegar were to be applied, or else an ass’s heart.

Curiosities in wood technology were rife and many contradictions among the wood sharps existed, as in our times. Only four elements, earth, water, fire, air, composed all bodies; the more fire in the composition of a wood, the more readily would it decay. Spruce, being composed of less earth and water but more fire and air, is therefore lighter than oak which, mostly composed of earth, is therefore so durable; but the latter warps and develops season splits because on account of its density it cannot take up readily and resists the penetration of moisture.

Wood impregnation, supposed to be a modern invention, was already practiced; cedrium (cedar oil) being used as well as a tar coating or immersion in seawater for one year, to secure greater durability.

4. _Literature._

As regards literature, we find in Greece, besides what can be learned incidentally from the historians _Herodotus_ and _Xenophon_ and from the natural history of Aristotle, the first work on plant history and wood technology, if not forestry, in 18 volumes by _Theophrastus_ (390-286 B.C.), a pupil of Aristotle and Plato.

Among the Romans, besides a number of historians, at least three writers before Christ discussed in detail agriculture and, in connection with it, tree culture; namely, _Cato_ (234-149 B.C.) who wrote an excellent work _De re rustica_, in 162 chapters; _Varro_ (116-26 B.C.), also _De re rustica_, in three books; and _Vergilius Maro_ (70-19 B.C.), who in his _Georgica_ records in six books the state of knowledge at that time. Of the many writers on these subjects who came in the Christian era there are also three to be mentioned, namely, _Cajus Plinius Major_ (23-79 A.D.), who in his _Historia naturalis_, in 37 books, discusses also the technique of silviculture; _Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella_ (about 50 A.D.), with 12 books, _De re rustica_, and one book _De arboribus_, the former being the best work of the ancients on the subject; and _Palladius_, writing about 350 A.D., 13 books, _De re rustica_, which in the original and in translations was read until past the middle ages.

Only a few references which exhibit the state of knowledge on arboricultural subjects among the Romans as shown in this literature may be cited, some of which knowledge was also developed in Greece and found application, more or less, throughout the Roman empire from India to Spain.

Nursery practice was already well known to Cato, while Varro knew, besides sowing and planting, the art of grafting and layering, and Columella discusses in addition pruning and pollarding (which latter was practiced for securing fuelwood), and the propriety of leaving the pruned trees two years to recuperate before applying the knife again.

The method of wintering acorns and chestnuts in sand, working them over every 30 days and separating the poor seed by floating in water, was known to Columella and, indeed, he discusses nursery management with minute detail, even the advantages of transplants and of doubly transplanted material. The question whether to plant or to sow, the preference of fall or spring planting with distinction for different species and localities are matters under his consideration; and preference of sowing oak and chestnut instead of transplanting is pointed out and supported by good reasons.

Pliny, the Humboldt of the ancients, recognizes tolerance of different species, the need of different treatment for different species, the desirability of transplanting to soil and climatic conditions similar to those to which the tree was accustomed, and of placing the trees as they stood with reference to the sun. But, to be sure, he also has many curious notions, as for instance his counsel to set shallow rooted trees deeper than they stood before, his advice not to plant during rain, or windy weather and his laying much stress on the phases of the moon as influencing results.

* * * * *

While then the ancients were not entirely without silvicultural knowledge, indeed possessed much more than is usually credited to them, the need of a forest policy and of a systematic forest management in the modern sense had not arisen in their time; the mild climate reducing the necessity of fuelwood and the accessibility by water to sources of supply for naval and other construction delaying the need for forest production at home.

There is little doubt, that some of the agricultural and silvicultural knowledge and practice of the Romans found entrance among the German tribes who, especially the Allemanni, came into contact with the Romans in their civilized surroundings during the fourth century.

GERMANY.

Besides a dozen or more earlier histories of forestry in Germany, some of which date back to the beginning of the 19th century, there are two excellent modern compilations, namely:

_Geschichte des Waldeigenthums, der Waldwirtschaft und Forstwissenschaft in Deutschland_, by AUGUST BERNHARDT, 1872-75, 3 Vols., 1062 pp., a classic, which treats especially extensively of political and economic questions having a bearing on the development of forestry; and

_Handbuch der Forst- und Jagdgeschichte Deutschlands_, by ADAM SCHWAPPACH, 1886, 2 Vols., 892 pp., which appeared as a second edition of Bernhardt’s history, abridging the political history and expanding the forestry part. This volume has been mainly followed in the following presentation of the subject. In condensed form this history is also to be found in LOREY’S _Handbuch der Forstwissenschaft_, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 143-210.

In Schwappach’s history a full list of original sources is enumerated. These are, for the oldest period, Roman writings, which are unreliable; the laws of the various German tribes; the laws of kings (_Capitularia_); the laws of villages and other territorial districts; “Weisthümer” (judgments); inventories of properties (especially of churches and cloisters); documents of business transactions and chronicles. For the time after the Middle ages the most important source is found in the Forest Ordinances of princes and other forest owners; forest laws; police orders; business documents, and finally special literature.

It is generally conceded that both the science and art of forestry are most thoroughly developed and most intensively applied throughout Germany. It must, however, not be understood that perfection has been reached anywhere in the practical application of the art, or that the science, which like that of medicine has been largely a growth of empiricism, is in all parts safely based; nor are definitely settled forest policies so entrenched, that they have become immutable. On the contrary, there are still mismanaged and unmanaged woods to be found, mainly those in the hands of farmers and other private owners; there are still even in well managed forests practices pursued which are known not to conform to theoretical ideals, and others which lack a sure scientific foundation; and while the general policy of conservative management and of State interest in the same is thoroughly established, the methods of attaining the result are neither uniform throughout the various States which form the German Federation, nor positively settled anywhere. In other words, the history of forestry is still, even in this most advanced country, in the stage of lively development.