312 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY, 



riod. Instead of an accidental growth of trees, spared from the gen- 

 eral clearing of the ground, which have been suffered to come up in 

 a hap-hazard sort of way, exposed to assault and damage of various 

 kinds, from inse(.'ts, from browsing cattle allowed to roam freely among 

 them, and from the carelessness, if not the wanton waste, of man, the 

 forest is regarded as a growth carefully provided for, the conditions 

 of its increase are diligently studied beforehand, and all means are 

 used to develop it to the fullest measure of its value according to 

 the purpose for which its cultivation has been undertaken. In short, 

 forestry looks upon the growth of a piece of woods as we look upon 

 the growth of plants in a garden, or a crop in the field of a farmer, as 

 the result both of science and art. Only it is a nobler growth than 

 these, and requires a higher science and nicer art, inasmuch as the trees 

 measure their age by centuries and not by months or seasons, as do the 

 ordinary crops of the garden and the field, and because they have 

 important relations, controlling relations even to agriculture itself, to 

 climate, to commerce, and the industrial arts, and so to the highest in- 

 terests of national life. 



The work of forestry, as understood in Europe, contemplates not 

 only the projDer care of existing woodlands, but the replanting of dis- 

 tricts which have been stripped of their forests, and also the plant- 

 ing of forests in new places, where such planting may be advanta- 

 geously done. Schools of forestry have their origin in the desire to 

 accomplish this most successfully. The growth of a forest is the 

 Avork of a century, and even more. It is not properly to be under- 

 taken with only the limited intelligence or care with which we culti- 

 vate the annual crops of our fields. If the work is begun without 

 adequate preparation, or is conducted in a faulty manner, the mistake 

 can not be remedied soon, if at all. If one makes a mistake in the 

 culture of ordinary crops, he can correct it the next year ; but, if he 

 plants a forest on an erroneous plan, the mistake is not one of a year, 

 but of a hundred, or even two hundred years. ]Rot only is it neces- 

 sary that the botany of the trees should be understood, the nature and 

 habits of the various species be studied, and their adaptations to dif- 

 ferent soils and situations, as well as to different practical uses when 

 grown, be regarded, but the laws of meteorology are to be consid- 

 ered and conformed to. The knowledge of geology and mineralogy 

 is also involved, as well as the laws of mechanics. Indeed, no sooner 

 is the subject taken into consideration in its true character, than it 

 is seen to be interwoven with a very large range of studies, so that 

 something like schools of forestry seem almost at once desirable, if not 

 indispensable. 



The beginning of forest schools may be dated from 1770, when 

 Frederick the Great established a course of theoretical instruction in 

 forestry at Berlin. This, however, was irregular, dependent upon the 

 competency of the professors at the university, for the time being, to 



