A BEGINNER IN FORESTRY 



By Anne warner 



Paper Six 



WHEN we returned on the 25th 

 of January the winter had 

 fallen thick and white upon 

 Brunswick. The view from the 

 Burgberg- was no longer of toy vil- 

 lages set out on a patch-work quilt 

 of greens and browns ; it had now be- 

 come toy villages set out on a shining 

 sheet of silvery snow with sunny lit- 

 tle trees dotted pin-like in many di- 

 rections. So pretty every day ! So 

 wonderful when storms came drifting 

 out of the gray north ! And presently 

 we — indoors or out — found ourselves 

 in the midst of a blinding snow that 

 whirled and swept and reeled about, 

 and then after fifteen minutes of fury, 

 sailed sweetly and calmly away. As 

 the little girl, the poodle, and I all 

 huddled together against a big tree 

 during one of the fiercest of these 

 blows it came to me what "with no 

 other shelter than a tree" really meant. 

 Uncivilized races feel first and try 

 to explain what they feel as they learn 

 language, but we civilized people are 

 so well educated that we can clescribe 

 everything without knowing anything 

 about it. I have even been given to 

 understand that some hold that know- 

 ing about things places easy speakers 

 at a real disadvantage. I can hardly 

 believe that, but I do feel keenly the 

 inadequacy of words after you arc 

 thoroughly permeated by the real feel- 

 ing. When I was in London and 

 longed, with a heart-sick loneliness that 

 no one believed in, for the forest, I 

 found myself looking in despair on 

 those who never would understand. 



Now I am back in it and life and 

 language, trees, and my soul, run 

 smoothly abreast again. The gray, and 

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brown, and purple lights and shadows 

 lie quiet and wait for us to come to 

 them, and when we go there the wide 

 silence, the soft snow, the little black 

 flowing streams, gurgling under its icy 

 coat, the tiny new green things pierc- 

 ing upward — they are all ready with a 

 welcome. The forest is so full of inter- 

 est in its wildest form — and here it is 

 so full of its life with men. Such a 

 wonderful inter-weaving ! As we go 

 along in the still quiet we come sud- 

 denly on the wood cutters — or on the 

 long rows of cut and piled wood. The 

 trees were marked before we went 

 away. They were felled while we were 

 absent. The largest were chained on 

 wagons and drawn to the railroad. The 

 next were sawed with long, thin hand- 

 saws worked by two men each, and 

 then corded up for sale. The smallest 

 were cut and trimmed and swathed to- 

 gether in long, curious hedge-like piles. 

 The waste and twigs the poor received 

 gratis. For a fortnight the drawing 

 away has been going on, and I cannot 

 see that the trees are thinned out at all. 

 The head forester conducted the wood 

 sale here in the little Kurhans ten days 

 ago. It was a bitter cold day and they 

 borrowed the oil stove out of my guest 

 room so that the head forester would 

 not freeze while he sold wood. 



I wish it were possible for more chil- 

 dren at home to learn the winter life 

 in the woods. Most children get under 

 the trees in the summer, but compara- 

 tively few in the winter. The winter is 

 just as full of interest as the loveliest 

 possible summer season if one can only 

 get a chance to enjoy it. We've been 

 amused to see that the mole digs along 

 under the snow exactly as if it were 



