FORESTS ; FOREST-SCIENCE. A forest is a large tract of ground overgrown with trees and underwood. As civilization and population advance, forests lessen in every country. It has been notably so in Great Britain. Ireland has few forests. In Norway the mountains are covered with wood; birch, maple, pine, and fir, forming immense forests. The fir some times attaining a height of 160 feet, is in great estimation for masts and building tim ber. In the regions of moderate elevation are aspens. The good lands have some fine forests of oaks. The forests of Sweden are similar to those of Norway. In Denmark the existing forests cover but a small area. The timber of Holland consists of beech, fir, poplar, and ash ; willow grows along the canals, and the coppices are of maple, ash, hornbeam, birch, and beech, with a slight portion of oak-bushes. In Germany the forests are estimated to cover nearly one-third of the whole surface ; they comprise most of the usual varieties of timber trees. Switzerland is abundantly wooded, par ticularly with the cone-bearing trees. France has many fine forests, though hardly suffi cient for the consumption of a country where wood is the chief combustible. Italy, Spain, and Portugal, are all rather deficient in forests. European Turkey has fine forests of oak, elm, pine, plum, apple, pear, cherry, apricot, maple, sycamore, walnut, chestnut, and beech trees.
Of all the countries of Europe, Russia is the most abundantly provided with timber ; and her forests would be an almost inex haustible source of wealth, if it were possible for the government effectually to protect them from destruction. In 1802 regulations for the preservation of the forests were established ; but such is their extent and that of the country, that it is next to impossible wholly to prevent the waste of wood. There are 200,000,000 of acres exclusively covered with pine and other cone-bearing trees, without counting oaks, maples, beech, poplar, horn beam, and birch. Poland is, for its size, nearly as well supplied with forests as Russia.
In Asia Minor, Mount Taurus is covered with forests of cypress, juniper, and savines. Oaks and fir abound in the forests along the Black Sea. Trees of all these kinds occur in the Caucasus. Persia has few forests, except amongst the mountains near the Caspian. Arabia has none. Central Asia is too little known to yield us much information respecting its forests. Siberia has some vast forests or the harder kinds of trees. China, Japan, and Corea, all possess immense forests in their more mountainous districts. India, both within and beyond the Ganges, is rich in wood. There are whole forests of the bam boo, which sometimes attain a height of 00 feet. Cocoa-nut and palms of all kinds cover large tracts. Here are woods of oak, fir, cypress, and poplar ; there of mangoes, ban yan-trees, uvarias, robinias, sandalwood, &c. Nearly all the eastern islands seem to be tolerably rich in forests, Australia perhaps excepted.
In Africa there are some spots in which vegetation is rich beyond description. Thus
Senegambia, Guinea, and Congo, are covered with forests, which consist of the baobab, of palms, robinias, sycamores, sandal - wood, tamarinds, bananas, oranges, limes, and pomegranates ; there are also cocoa-nut trees in great abundance. The tamarind and cedar, which grow in the greatest profusion on the borders of the Congo, furnish timber of the finest quality. Abyssinia has abundant woods. The Atlas Mountains are covered with mag nificent forests, producing a variety of oaks, the mastic tree, the cypress, &c. The king dom of Bornou has immense forests, and the date-palm abounds there.
America is, of all parts of the world, the most thickly covered with wood. Canada ion tains immense forests, as do most of the British North American territories. The United States are abundantly wooded, the cleared land even in some of the Atlantic states being inconsiderable when compared with that still covered with the primitive forests. Oregon, Mexico, and Texas, have all splendid forests. The West India islands are for the most part only moderately wooded In South America the Caracas possesses inex. haustible forests ; and so indeed do most of the South American states. The forest region of the river Amazon and of the upper Orinoco, according to Humboldt, covers an area of about 710,000 square miles.
There are no laws respecting the forests of England among the laws attributed to the Conqueror; hut after the Norman Conquest the royal forests were guarded with much greater strictness. In later times these forests gradually sunk in importance ; and our government department of Woods and Forests' shews how little benefit the royal forests produce to the state generally.
In Germany a distinct branch of education has become established, called 'Forest Sci ence.' In the Forest Academies are taught botany generally, including vegetable physio logy, mineralogy, zoology, chemistry, survey ing, mensuration, mechanics, the methods of resisting the encroachments of sands, drain ing and embanking, together with the care and chase of game ; and also the laws and regulations of forest administration. In Prussia and other German states, in France, and in Russia, similar studies are carried on. The wood from forests is applied to the various purposes of house-building, ship building, mill and wheel work, turnery, orna- ' ruents, fuel, &c. ; and the study of its fitness for these purposes forms a part of forest science.
In England, where no such schools exist, knowledge has accumulated from out-door experience, rather than school education. In English timber plantations, as crooked pieces of large oaks are of value in ship-building, the side branches are not taken off higher than fifteen or twenty feet from the ground, and where trees have plenty of room, as in hedge-rows or parks, this may be judicious, hut in close plantations it is of advantage to have a long stem without branches. In France and Germany the branches are always cut off to the height of 30.or 40 feet.