Even in remote historical times, such as those of Canute, the forests had become seriously and dangerously destroyed. This king was apparently the first to artificially protect the woods as a hunting preserve. He was followed by William the Conqueror and other sovereigns. The game preserves of the landed proprietors to-day are, of course, the remains of the same custom.

Fortunately, however, we do not kill poachers or cut off their right hands, and we do not cut off the forepaws of poaching dogs, as used to be done in medieval days.

This connexion of forests with game no doubt prevented the entire disappearance of wood, but when, as is the case in England, the comfort of pheasants is thought of more importance than the scientific cultivation of forests, the result is often very unfortunate.

The use and value of timber is, however, too important a matter to take up at the end of a chapter.

CHAPTER IV
ON FORESTS

The forests of the Coal Age—Monkey-puzzle and ginkgo—Wood, its uses, colour, and smell—Lasting properties of wood—Jarrah and deodar—Teak—Uses of birch—Norwegian barques—Destruction of wood in America—Paper from wood pulp—Forest fires—Arid lands once fertile—Britain to be again covered by forests—Vanished country homes—Ashes at farmhouses—Yews in churchyards—History of Man versus Woods in Britain.

WHAT was the first tree like? That is a very difficult question to answer. Perhaps the first forests were those of the great coal period, of which the remains, buried for untold ages in the earth, became the coal which we now burn.

The flames and red-glowing heat of a fire are the work of the sunlight which fell in these long-past ages through a steamy, misty atmosphere, upon these weird, grotesque vegetables, unlike anything which now exists upon the earth. Their nearest allies amongst living plants are the little club-mosses which creep over the peat and through the heather in alpine districts.

Of course no one can say exactly what these coal forests were like. But although some modern authorities have questioned the general accuracy of the descriptions of Heer and others, yet, as they have not given anything better in the way of description, we shall endeavour to describe them according to our own beliefs, and as they probably existed in the Lanarkshire coalfield and other places in Britain.