The legislation of European states upon sylviculture, and the practice of that art, divide themselves into two great branches--the preservation of existing forests, and the creation of new. From the long operation of causes already set forth, what is understood in America and other new countries by the "primitive forest," no longer exists in the territories which were the seats of ancient civilization and empire, except upon a small scale, and in remote and almost inaccessible glens quite out of the reach of ordinary observation. The oldest European woods, indeed, are native, that is, sprung from self-sown seed, or from the roots of trees which have been felled for human purposes; but their growth has been controlled, in a variety of ways, by man and by domestic animals, and they always present more or less of an artificial character and arrangement. Both they and planted forests, which, though certainly not few, are of recent date in Europe, demand, as well for protection as for promotion of growth, a treatment different in some respects from that which would be suited to the character and wants of the virgin wood. On this latter branch of the subject, experience and observation have not yet collected a sufficient stock of facts to serve for the construction of a complete system of sylviculture; but the management of the forest as it exists in France--the different zones and climates of which country present many points of analogy with those of the United States and some of the British colonies--has been carefully studied, and several manuals of practice have been prepared for the foresters of that empire. I believe the best of these is the _Cours Elementaire de Culture des Bois cree a l'Ecole Forestiere de Nancy, par M. Lorentz, complete, et publie par A. Parade_, with a supplement under the title of _Cours d'Amenagement des Forets, par Henri Nanquette_. The _Etudes sur l'Economie Forestiere, par Jules Clave_, which I have often quoted, presents a great number of interesting views on this subject, and well deserves to be translated for the use of the English and American reader; but it is not designed as a practical guide, and it does not profess to be sufficiently specific in its details to serve that purpose. Notwithstanding the difference of conditions between the aboriginal and the trained forest, the judicious observer who aims at the preservation of the former will reap much instruction from the treatises I have cited, and I believe he will be convinced that the sooner a natural wood is brought into the state of an artificially regulated one, the better it is for all the multiplied interests which depend on the wise administration of this branch of public economy.[282]