SOME NOTES ON GERMAN FORESTRY 



By warren H. MILLER, M. F. 



Editor of Field & Stream. 



IN the summer of 1911 it was my privilege to review on a large scale 

 forestry studies undertaken twenty years ago in Saxony, and also to 

 compare in a general way the practical forestry of Germany with that of 

 France, to which I recently devoted the better part of two year's study. Start- 

 ing with the countless kiefer or Sylvester pine forests of North Germany, con- 

 tinuing through the mountain fir and spruce forests of Thuringia and Saxony, 

 and ending with the oak and beech forests on the clayey soils of Rheinland 

 and Westphalia, I saw over two hundred German forests, many by rail and 

 not a few by leisurely inspection, on foot. For the trained forester, such a 

 trip was of the keenest delight, and crowded with helpful hints and practical 

 kinks adaptable to our own practice; and a brief description of the more 

 salient points which came under my observation may be of interest to the 

 fraternity of foresters here in America. 



Without exception these German forests were all under full management 

 and yielding paying dividends that enabled them to hold their own against 

 surrounding agriculture, and among the conifers only three out of about 150 

 forests were by natural reproduction, by seeding cuts, as in France. All 

 the rest were planted, the experience of the German foresters being that the 

 uniformly straight trees resulting from planting gave a market for all sizes 

 of thinnings which would otherwise be a source of embarrassment as it now 

 is with us. 



KIBFEE (SYLVESTER PINE) 



Probably the most interesting study of all was the growth and disposal 

 of the immense forests of kiefer or Sylvester pine which cover Prussia. From 

 Hamburg to Berlin, dozens of these forests are passed, and in every direction 

 from Berlin, westward as far as Magdeburg, eastward through Prussia to 

 Ost-Preussen, and southwards well into Saxony, they number hundreds, from 

 small tracts of forty or fifty acres up to areas of several thousand. The 

 natural soil is all poor and sandy, scantily mixed with loam, and will grow 

 only potatoes and cabbages, with a little pasturage, so that forestry pays 

 almost as well as agriculture, ranking therefore as one of the principal in- 

 dustries. This immense sandy plain covers a large per cent of the total area 

 of Germany, and the country seems to have grown up with the kiefer pine 

 as a national institution, for the influence of this tree upon the life and 

 architecture of the people is one of the most logical instances of cause and 

 efifect to be met with in observing the fundamental characteristics of a nation. 

 To provide a market for the six-inch kiefer thinnings there is the typical 



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