From an economical point of view, the question of the due proportion of forest is not less complicated or less important than in its purely physical aspects. Of all the raw materials which nature supplies for elaboration by human art, wood is undoubtedly the most useful, and at the same time the most indispensable to social progress. [Footnote: In an imaginary dialogue in the Recepte Veritable, the author, Palissy, having expressed his indignation at the folly of men in destroying the woods, his interlocutor defends the policy of felling them, by citing the example of "divers bishops, cardinals, priors, abbots, monkeries and chapters, which, by cutting their woods, have made three profits, "the sale of the timber, the rent of the ground, and the "good portion" they received of the grain grown by the peasants upon it. To this argument Palissy replies: "I cannot enough detest this thing, and I call it not an error, but a curse and a calamity to all France; for when forests shall be cut, all arts shall cease, and they which practise them shall be driven out to eat grass with Nebuchadnezzar and the beasts of the field. I have divers times thought to set down in writing the arts which shall perish when there shall be no more wood; but when I had written down a great number, I did perceive that there could be no end of my writing, and having diligently considered, I found there was not any which could be followed without wood." … "And truly I could well allege to thee a thousand reasons, but 'tis so cheap a philosophy, that the very chamber-wenches, it they do but think, may see that without wood, it is not possible to exercise any manner of human art or cunning."—Oeuvres de Bernard Pallisy . Paris, 1844, p. 89.]

The demand for wood, and of course the quantity of forest required to furnish it, depend upon the supply of fuel from other sources, such as peat and coal, upon the extent to which stone, brick, or metal can advantageously be substituted for wood in building, upon the development of arts and industries employing wood and other forest products as materials, and upon the cost of obtaining them from other countries, or upon their commercial value as articles of export.

Upon the whole, taking civilized Europe and America together, it is probable that from twenty to twenty-five per cent. of well-wooded surface is indispensable for the maintenance of normal physical conditions, and for the supply of materials so essential to every branch of human industry and every form of social life as those which compose the harvest of the woods.

There is probably no country—there are few large farms even—where at least one-fourth of the soil is not either unfit for agricultural use, or so unproductive that, as pasture or as ploughland, it yields less pecuniary return than a thrifty wood. Every prairie has its sloughs where willows and poplars would find a fitting soil, every Eastern farm its rocky nooks and its barren hillsides suited to the growth of some species from our rich forest flora, and everywhere belts of trees might advantageously be planted along the roadsides and the boundaries and dividing fences. In most cases, it will be found that trees may be made to grow well where cultivated crops will not repay the outlay of tillage, and it is a very plain dictate of sound economy that if trees produce a better profit than the same ground would return if devoted to grass or grain, the wood should be substituted for the field.

Woodland in European Countries.

In 1862, Rentzsch calculated the proportions of woodland in different
European countries as follows: [Footnote: Der Wald, pp. 123, 124.]

Norway……………………………. 66 per cent.
Sweden……………………………. 60 "
Russia……………………………. 30.00 "
Germany…………………………… 26.58 "
Belgium…………………………… 18.52 "
France……………………………. 16.79 "
Switzerland……………………….. 15 "
Sardinia…………………………… 12.29
Neapolitan States…………………… 9.43 "
Holland……………………………. 7.10 "
Spain……………………………… 5.52 "
Denmark……………………………. 5.50 "
Great Britain………………………. 5 "
Portugal…………………………… 4.40 "

The large proportion of woodland in Norway and Sweden is in a great measure to be ascribed to the mountainous character of the surface, which renders the construction of roads difficult and expensive, and hence the forests are comparatively inaccessible, and transportation is too costly to tempt the inhabitants to sacrifice their woods for the sake of supplying distant markets.

The industries which employ wood as a material have only lately been much developed in these countries, and though the climate requires the consumption of much wood as a fuel, the population is not numerous enough to create, for this purpose, a demand exceeding the annually produced supply, or to need any great extension of cleared ground for agricultural purposes. Besides this, in many places peat is generally employed as domestic fuel. Hence, though Norway has long exported a considerable quantity of lumber, [Footnote: Railway-ties, or, as they are called in England, sleepers, are largely exported from Norway to India, and sold at Calcutta at a lower price than timber of equal quality can be obtained from the native woods.—Reports on Forest Conservancy, vol. i., pt. ii., p. 1533.

From 1861 to 1870 Norway exported annually, on the average, more than 60,000,000 cubic feet of lumber.—Wulfsberg, Norges Velstandskilder. Christiania, 1872.] and the iron and copper works of Sweden consume charcoal very largely, the forests have not diminished rapidly enough to produce very sensible climatic or even economic evils.