Читать книгу A Brief History of Forestry - B. E. Fernow - Страница 6

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Waldgeschichte des Alterthums, by August Seidensticker, 1886, 2 vols., pp. 863, is a most painstaking compilation from original sources of notes regarding the forest conditions and the knowledge of trees, forests and forestry among the ancients. Contains also a full bibliography.

Die Waldwirthschaft der Rœmer, by J. Trurig, collects the knowledge, especially of arboriculture and silviculture, possessed by the Romans.

Forstwissenschaftliche Leistungen der Altgriechen, by Dr. Chloros, in Forstwissenschaftliches Centralblatt, 1885, pp. 8.

Archeologia forestale, Dell’ antica storia e giurisprudenza forestale in Italia, by A. di Berenger, 1859.

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.