Spain cut down most of its trees to build ships. Britain cut down its entire stock of yew to make longbows. Deforestation in Europe by and large took place before the industrial revolution, which was fueled by coal and iron, not wood. So I don't know what a fair point of comparison would be, really. But it is clear why the lop point of deforestation should have happened in the 1800's (with cross-country variations of a few couple of decades).

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman