TIIK, SCIIOUL-TKAINKl) I-ORESTKR 853 



the men who employ him, his own help, the finance, etc., all actively 

 prodding him into keeping his mind on the work. The tree says nothing 

 to the forester, and if his own interest does not "keep him going" — that 

 is, hold his attention, make him look and search and take note of things — 

 he will see little in the forest, and he certainly will never do much for 

 the forest. After eighteen years of teaching I can testify that the 

 hardest lesson to learn in forestry, and the most difficult habit for the 

 student to acquire, is the interest in the growing stock of the forest. 

 And it is here, far more than in the things which Wr. Kneipp empha- 

 sizes, that the average student fails. 



Turning now to experience in these matters, both abroad and here, 

 the testimony of great facts and real accomplishment contradicts flatly 

 most of Mr. Kneipp's assumptions. Forestry in Europe as an important 

 industry, as good, reliable, and respected business, as a branch of 

 applied science deserving of a literature and of special schools, was 

 not made by the woodchopper, the hunter, the sheepherder, or the 

 lumberman ; nor was it made by the lawyer, the economist, or the 

 botanist and naturalist, although all of these did useful service ; nor 

 was forestry made by the office-holding crowd. Forestry as it exists 

 in Europe was built up by the educated forester, by the man who 

 acquired all the schooling that he could get or aftord. and who made 

 forestry his business. And forestry progressed in proportion as the 

 educated, the school-bred man became more and more general in for- 

 estry work. Even 150 years ago many of the large forests were in 

 the hands of the hunter {Waldgcrcchte Jdgcr of the (iermans). and 

 mismanagement at every turn was the rule. At that time most of the 

 small woods were cared for by the practical woodsman, the man who 

 chopped and planted very well, but who had no insight and no out- 

 look, and who worked along aimlessly and without plan ; the miserable 

 co])pice woods of private owners and communes were the result. 



And all legislation, whether "forstordnungcn" in Germany or the 

 famous "Ordonnancc dcs Eaii.r ct Forcts," did not sj^ring from wood- 

 choppers and hunters, but were the compilations of the best there was 

 known in forestry at the time, made by school-bred, learned people, 

 chiefly lawyers, economists, and priests. 



And even in this case the necessity for the school-bred forester in the 

 forest, and not merely the office man at headquarters, was most clearly 

 demonstrated, for it was the lack of proi)erly prepared nu-n and com- 

 l)etent sui)ervision in the woods which brought these laws and the con- 

 sequent organizations into disrepute and largely offset the good which 

 they might have done. Forestry as a science and as a practice did not 



