TJie Rise of Sihn culture. 547 



silviculture. The lively opposition with which they have met 

 among foresters only proves the point. The hard-headed prac- 

 titioner balks at both because they each claim general applicability 

 and universal validity. The new ideas submitted and the old 

 ideas rehabilitated in these books are of permanent value, just as 

 were for example the epochal works of Borggreve and Pressler. 

 These theories must expect the same treatment accorded to those. 

 They will not be swallowed whole, but will be accepted and as- 

 similated only in so far as they prove of service to the conserva- 

 tive practice of forestry working on a great variety of sites and 

 with long-lived stands, worked by short-lived men. 



A closer scrutiny shows that these two are not alone in the field, 

 though receiving first notice. A great many others, both before 

 and since, have published the results of their reflections and ex- 

 periences in silviculture. To me it is a significant and gratifying 

 sign of the times that men deep in practical problems should do 

 this. Their ideas may attract less attention because they modestly 

 limit them to local conditions ; by some they may be disregarded. 

 Yet, it is quite possible that the new but tested ideas they contri- 

 bute may have greater value than those pretending to world-wide 

 validity. A few only of essential and unusual importance in the 

 development of forestry will be here mentioned. 



In the West, interest centres about the heath and its conversion 

 to forest, in ithe East, the problem is the reduction of the areas 

 under pure stands and of the practice of clear cutting. In the 

 West are the thoughtful, but abstruse Dutch, van Schermbeek, 

 the theorist Grabner, and the practical Erdmann ; in the East, 

 Godberssen first wrote in 1907, Diiesberg, and Dittmar more 

 recently. Van Schermbeek, now lecturer in the Dutch high school 

 at Wageningen got his ideas in practical work, and put them into 

 practice on the heath at Breda. It is a pity his writings are 

 hardly understandable, partly due to differences in language, 

 partly due to his ever increasing tendency to encumber them with 

 insufliciently explained fundamentals of soil chemistry and 

 physics. Foresters have avoided his writings instead of seeking 

 them out, and they have been the butt of undeserved sarcastic 

 criticism. But no one who has visited him and seen what he has 

 accomplished and attempted, and has heard his explanation of it 

 all will deny its importance in the development of silviculture. 

 A resume of his work has been attempted in "Forstwissenschaft- 



