546 Forestry Quarterly. 



Two more recent books, Wagner's "Blendersaumschlagwirt- 

 schaft" and Mayr's "Waldbau auf naturgesetzlicher Grundlage," 

 have taken a much more radical stand. Both have been widely 

 discussed and the ideas they advocate are now generally known. 

 Both Wagner and Mayr are opposed to managing large areas as 

 a unit. Wagner prefers natural reproduction to any artificial 

 means because this produces a race of trees adapted to the site 

 and gives rise to mixed stands. His practice is to cut the forest 

 in narrow strips running east and west, beginning at the northern 

 edge of the forest, a narrow strip being thinned in advance of 

 cutting, to start the natural reproduction. There are thus, "at 

 least in theory," three strips along the northern edge of the uncut 

 forests; (a) a thinning to set the crop of seedlings, (b) young 

 seedlings under nurse trees, (c) the clear cut strip on which re- 

 production is complete. Artificial reproduction when used as a 

 makeshift. Mayr's ideal is quite contrariwise, a small pure 

 stand. Species are not to be mixed as individuals but as stands 

 of from 0.3 to 3 hectares. For soil protection, he resorts to 

 underplanting in about the fifth decade. His ideal stand can be 

 established by planting after clear cutting, as well as in any other 

 way. It should be perpetuated by natural reproduction, though 

 no advantage is anticipated in the production of a race of trees 

 adapted to the site. Wagner has developed and tested his method 

 in the forest, and advances it as the most advantageous method 

 of reproduction — the only one worth practicing — yet he recog- 

 nizes the difficulty of carrying it out under unfavorable site con- 

 ditions. Mayr deduces his procedure from purely theoretical 

 grounds and accordingly claims universal applicability for it. 

 It is not only suited to German conditions, but works just as well 

 throughout Europe, in Africa or in the East Indies. He at- 

 tempts to establish silviculture as a science dependent on other 

 sciences and thus give it the sufficient and necessary conditions 

 for world-wide service and to show that theoretical knowledge 

 and logical thought are all that is necessary to apply this science 

 of silviculture to each and every problem. 



These carefully thought out and well elaborated books have 

 indeed ushered in a new epoch during these past few years ; they 

 have not only given silviculture a distinctly novel turn, but have 

 interpreted our existing knowledge in a new way, and used the 

 old ideas along with their new conceptions in building up the new 



