The consumption of paper in the United Kingdom must be over £30,000,000 a year, and if it be probable that mountain forests are likely to be the scene of a considerable portion of its production in the future, what an opportunity is there then of utilizing by means of forestry the waste lands and the cheap labour of Donegal and Connemara. Ever since 1800 the question of the waste lands has been before the public. It was reported on in 1812, and again by the Devon Commission of 1840. Every writer on the industrial resources of Ireland had paid it particular attention. It was mentioned by Sir Richard Griffith, by Munns, by Dutton, and even before 1800 by Arthur Young. There is hardly a Government in Europe which has not undertaken the work of reclaiming and afforesting waste lands."
FORESTS FORMERLY IN ARAN.
So writes the author of those interesting letters, and he dissipates an illusion which is prevalent amongst us, namely, that to turn planting into profit requires long years and gross timber. On the contrary, as his observations prove, in their earlier years of growth forests will supply many industries for which old timber is unsuited. A great objection to re-afforesting mountains and rocky districts is the length of time that is generally supposed must elapse before so gigantic a work could become remunerative; but Mr. O'Conor Donelan shows that no great length of time is necessary, and that after a very few years timber would be suitable for the works of which he speaks. Would that the Government would take his words to heart, and do in Ireland what German statesmen have done in Germany! There are men amongst us who would fain believe that Aran is too much exposed to the westerly winds to admit of timber being grown on the islands; but the great roots old in the earth tell of the great trees that grew in Aran many centuries ago.
CHAPTER VII
SUPERSTITIONS OF THE GROVE.
"Oh the Oak, and the Ash, and the bonnie Ivy tree
Flourish best at hame in the North Countrie."
SUN-WORSHIP IN ARAN.
In the present chapter we propose to give a few of the legends with which groves were enriched when the worship of the sun (Baal) was the religion of the world—legends yet remembered in Aran. In the groves they offered sacrifices, and "burnt," writes the Prophet Hosea, "incense under the oak and the poplar and the turpentine tree [the pine], because the shadow thereof was good."[20] And we are told that "Abraham planted a grove in Bersabee, and there called upon the Name of the everlasting God."[21]
WORSHIP OF BAAL IN ARAN.
The selection of such places originated, no doubt, in the fact that the gloom of the forest was calculated to excite awe, and because they considered that the spirits of the departed hovered over the places where the bodies were buried; and it was common to bury the dead under trees, as appears from the eighth verse of the thirty-fifth chapter of the Book of Genesis, where it is stated that when Deborah, the nurse of Rebecca, died, she was buried at the foot of Bethel under an oak tree, and the name of that place was called "The Oak of Weeping;" and when Saul, the first King of Israel, fell at the battle of Gilboe, his bones were buried under an oak tree at Jabesh.[22] Amongst the Hebrews it was common, before the time of Moses, to plant groves. But the idolatrous nations planted them also; and groves and the places of idol-worship soon became convertible terms. For the purpose, therefore, of extirpating idolatry, the Lord thus spoke through Moses: "Thou shalt plant no grove, nor any tree near the altar of the Lord thy God."[23] And in after-centuries, when Josias abolished the worship of Baal in Judah, and destroyed them that offered incense to the sun, and the moon, and to the twelve signs, he caused the grove to be burnt there.[24]