52 Forestry Quarterly. 



pine and spruce. The southern part of Sweden contains also 

 beech forests which, however, are only of local importance. Still 

 less important is the occurrence of oak, though it does not reach 

 its northern extension before 6i°, i. e. slightly north of Stock- 

 holm. In the coniferous forests, however, birch, bird-cherry and 

 aspen occur quite frequently. 



Even where they are being heavily exploited the forests still 

 show the natural types from which they have been derived. 

 Until lately it has been, and still continues to be in a large part 

 of the country the forest policy of Sweden to utilize such natural 

 grown forests, forest preservation and regeneration has been 

 aimed at with more or less good faith and success. 



As private forests in the greater part of Sweden were abso- 

 lutely free from restriction up to a few wears ago, examples of 

 the worst kind of devastation are to be found all over the country. 

 One must consider, however, that the forests of this northern 

 country, which seems to be specially created for forest growth, 

 can stand an incredible amount of abuse and reckless cutting. 



Only this can explain the fact that the prophecies by foreign 

 foresters of a total denudation of the entire country in the near 

 future, which has been spoken of in the past century, have not 

 come true. On the contrary the export trade has increased 

 steadily and by far not all of the forested regions have as yet 

 been attacked. 



The most important species for the lumber export trade is 

 pine, which covers the sandy bottoms, the glacial soils, and the 

 dry, extensive sandhills in pure stands or mixed with spruce. 

 The less poor and dry the soil, the greater per cent, of spruce 

 in the mixture. Dry pine barrens often contain only a few 

 straggling spruce as an understory. 



Otherwise the ground cover consists of the reindeer moss — 

 especially in the north — Erica and Binpetrum nigrum. Farther 

 south and in the moister localities of the north, mosses and species 

 of Vaccinium also appear. But there, too. the spruce begins to 

 come in, forming an understory of increasing density and, on the 

 richer soils, competing successfully with the main species of the 

 stand. Thus all phases of mixture of these two species are 

 found. 



When the pine is cut out of these mixed stands — a method 

 which was commonly practiced until recently — the spruce stand 



