678 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



logs was only about 3^/2 per cent, which is considered very favorable. 

 It would serve no useful purpose to go into the details of Finnish 

 lumber manufacture and lumber export trade. This bulletin leaves 

 no important phase untouched and is authoritative on the field which 

 it covers. Copies may be obtained from the Superintendent of Public 

 Documents at Washington. 



A. B. R. 



Yellozv Birch and lis Relation to the Adirondack Forest. By E. F. 

 McCarthy and H. C. Belyea. Technical Publication No. 12 of the 

 New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University, June. 

 1920. 



The study whose result"^ are presented in this bulletin was only 

 part of a more general study of yellow birch. Unfortunately nothing 

 is said as to the scope and contents of the complete study. Without 

 knowing this it is, of course, impossible to judge whether the subject 

 is or is not adequately covered. "This report." say the authors, 

 "includes a fundamental discussion of the types and conditions found 

 in the Adirondacks, and presents comparative data to show the silvi- 

 cultural relation of the birch to the other species native to the region." 

 With this promise in mind, the reviewer is forced to the conclusion 

 that tile subject has been too briefly covered and that many of the data 

 presented cannot, because of their local nature, be employed for useful 

 generalizations. Some of the statements made in the type description 

 are too obviously of a presumptive nature to be convincing, however 

 ])robable they may have appeared to the authors. The last criticism is 

 not. however, characteristic of the bulletin. On the whole it is re- 

 freshingly free from dogmatism. 



Silviculture in America has in the past suffered from being too 

 subjective, and this has been largely inevitable. We have had to get 

 along too frequently with didactic opinions, bolstered up by such 

 scattered and too often lopsided field studies as could be made with 

 scanty funds and a personnel of limited experience.. Recently these 

 conditions have changed; questions once answered ex cathedra are 

 now given competent investigation. As a sign and symbol of the new 

 order, the present bulletin is a welcome accession. As such, however, 

 it cannot claim the tolerance due publications in the balmy days of 

 our ignorance, but must meet more exacting standards and submit to 

 more searching criticism. 



