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.