Crown Forests at the Cape of Good Hope

Abstract

IN June last we noticed a work by Dr. Brown dealing with the schools of forestry in Germany, which, it appears, was the author's fifteenth volume on a variety of forest subjects. He has now presented the public with a new volume, out of a store of thirty said to be ready for publication. This plethora of forest literature showered upon us by Dr. Brown is becoming alarming. We pointed out on the previous occasion that the English reader has, in reality, very little interest to spare for forest questions, and what little does exist will certainly not be augmented by literature of the class under review. Here we have a goodly volume, comprising 352 pages of print, made up of a motley collection of old and new official reports, proceedings of an endless succession of Committees, &c., which, even if it were an official Blue book, would have to be pronounced badly arranged and filled with quantities of irrelevant matter. We do not mean to say that there is not a silver thread running through the whole; what we desire to point out is that the information to be conveyed and the lesson to be learnt could with the greatest ease have been arranged in a pamphlet of thirty or forty pages. To scatter a few grains amongst a huge quantity of chaff is highly objectionable, and it is our duty to protest in the strongest terms against this class of book manufacture. The author had a really interesting story to tell, which, if placed before the public in a small pamphlet or an article in a periodical, would have been sure to attract attention, and might have done some good.

Management of Crown Forests at the Cape of Good Hope under the Old Régime and under the New.

By John Croumbie Brown (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd; London: Simpkin Marshall and Co., 1887.)