A Brief History of Forestry. / In Europe, the United States and Other Countries

by B. E. Fernow

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.