870 The yoiLvnal of Forestry. 



It must be replenished from foreign seeds. Analogous to this class of 

 facts, and perhaps even more curious, a foreign species may thrive well, 

 make a particularly fine growth, and seed abundantly, and yet the second 

 generation, produced from the seeds of the first, not thrive well, so that, 

 instead of the species becoming acclimated, it deteriorates unless the seed 

 is brought from a more favoured region. Thus the Douglas spruce, a most 

 magnificent conifer from Oregon and California, thrives well in England, I 

 may say very well. I was told this summer of trees 100 feet high from 

 seed sent from Oregon less than fifty years ago by Douglas, the botanist, 

 from whom it is named ; and although there are tens of thousands of thrifty 

 trees of this species in Great Britain from Oregon seed, there are numerous 

 failures where the trees have been started from the seed produced in 

 England. 



Facts of this kind have long made m.e believe that a United £'tates 

 Commissioner of Forestry should be created, a man to collect and dissemi- 

 nate information, that the experience of one region might be valuable to 

 another, in suggestion if in nothing else, that causes of failure in one 

 place might be known and avoided in another ; for, remember, the grand 

 experiment is in progress, and there must needs be much indifferent 

 success, and sometimes total failure, before the best way will be known. 

 A forest crop, unlike a field crop, is too long-lived for a man to afford 

 many failures ; one great reason why forestry grew up in Europe was 

 because of Government aid, or the holding of large estates in the posses- 

 sion of a family, and results could be waited for ; while American farmers 

 usually need quicker returns for capital or labour invested. We had 

 woods and timbers shown at the Philadelphia Exhibition, 600, and one 

 piece was alleged to be of over 900 years' growth ; a Government might 

 possibly plant for a crop like that, — an individual never would. Those 

 specimens, however, were of nature's planting. 



Now for a few words about the best time for culling timber. I know 

 that this is usually regulated by the convenience of the farmer or wood- 

 cutter, — he cuts the timber at the time most convenient to him, regardless 

 of the effect of season on ibhe nature of the wood felled. In winter, 

 swamps are frozen, so that we can get in them to cut, and we could not in 

 summer ; and so in other cases we must be governed by other conditions 

 than that of mere quality of the product. 



Much has been written as to the best time for cutting timber, in respect 

 to the quality of the wood. In England, Germany, and I think in con- 

 tinental Europe generally, March to May are usually considered the best 

 months. I will not cite special authorities, but will here say that persons 

 who work up "items" for the public press often commit serious errors 

 by not telling ivliere, a certain rule obtains, and I see frequent " items " in 

 our papers, even those devoted to lumbering, which evidently originated 

 in the old countries, and do not apply here. In a recent U.S. Agricul- 

 tural Eeport, Dr. Hartigis cited as an authority as to best time being 

 March and April, and the theoretical reasons are given in the relative 

 amounts of sap that will dry out of timber cut at various ages. I do not 

 know what Dr. Hartig is quoted, but I strongly suspect it to be an 

 eminent German writer of that name on this subject, and that the woods 

 referred to are G-erman trees, grown on German soil and in a German 

 climate, — all a very different thing from our species, grown 4,000 miles 

 away under very different conditions. 



1 have examined all the American authorities whose writings I have 

 met with for some years, and also made numerous personal inquiries, and 

 nearly all agree that the best time is from June to October inclusive. 



