Cottd' s Preface. 5 



thorough forestry science in the same relation as the quack medi- 

 cine to the true pharmacopia ; and the other often does not know 

 the forest for the many trees. Things look very differently in the 

 forest from what they do in books ; the learned man stands there- 

 fore, frequently, left by his learning and at the same time without 

 the bold decision of the empiricist. 



Three principal causes exist why forestry is still so backward ; 

 first, the long time which wood needs for its development ; 

 second, the great variety of sites on which it grows ; thirdly, the 

 fact that the forester who practices much writes but little, and 

 he who writes much practices but little. 



The long development period causes that something is con- 

 sidered good and prescribed as such which is good only for a time, 

 and later becomes detrimental to the forest management. The 

 second fact causes that what many declare good or bad, proves, 

 good or bad only in certain places. The third fact brings it about 

 that the best experiences die with the man who made them, and 

 that many entirely one-sided experiences are copied by the merely 

 literary forester so often that they finally stand as articles of faith 

 which nobody dares to gainsay, no matter how one-sided or in 

 error they may be. 



Heinrich Cotta. 



Tharandt, Dec. 21, 18 16. 



Heinrich Cotta, born in 1763 in Thuringia, said of himself : " I 

 am a child of the forest ; no roof covers the spot where I was 

 born. Old oaks and beeches shade its solitude and grass grows 

 upon it. The first song I heard was of the birds of the forest, 

 my first surroundings were trees. Thus my birth determined my 

 calling!" He became the grandmaster of his profession. His 

 " Anweisung zum Waldbau," from which this preface is taken, 

 first published in 1817, experienced many editions, the last one in 

 1865 edited by his grandson Heinrich von Cotta. 



