The Rise of Silviculture. 549 



to nothing new, but attempts to set forth the accepted principles 

 of managing pine forests for private forest owners in a way to 

 help them handle their property with profit. The position an ex- 

 perienced practitioner takes upon the most important silvicultural 

 question gives this book its interest. We are told that mixtures 

 are per se better than pure stands, that there are dangers in clear 

 cutting, but on the other hand that natural reproduction is far 

 from an ideal practice and that after all is said the fact remains 

 that the current practice of clear cutting and planting has pro- 

 duced good results and will continue to do so. Dittmar is more 

 critical in his book written especially for young foresters, but 

 not unsuited for older foresters and for forest owners to read 

 and refer to. Experience, observation and reflection have con- 

 vinced him that clear cutting is unnatural and that natural repro- 

 duction is best because it approaches nearest to nature's method. 

 And next comes Diiesberg, the most logical, the pithiest and the 

 most original of Prussian writers on silviculture. His present 

 views were published in substance as early as 1898 in the "Miin- 

 dener forstlichen Heften." The very title of his book "Der 

 Wald als Erzieher" arrests attention. For this form of title has 

 been popular since J. Langbehn published his "Rembrandt als 

 Erzieher" two years ago, and set the reading public agog. Lang- 

 behn emphasizes the value of personality in every manifestation 

 of the mind and inveighs against adherence to custom and the 

 blind following of a beaten path, and prizes a new thought not 

 only for its own sake but because it means there is a thinker busy 

 somewhere. Diiesberg's book exemplifies this attitude. It is in 

 a class by itself. It is not merely silviculture, nor yet a mere 

 textbook of forestry. It might be termed a philosophy of the 

 forest. The rules and principles which this painstaking thinker 

 has developed in the narrow field of his professional activities, 

 the pine forests of eastern Prussia — developed with due regard to 

 the intricate historical, economic, legal, ethical and aesthetic cor- 

 relations in nature and in society — unite in his mind to produce a 

 theory for the natural and logical improvement of these pine 

 forests; but this is not all. They lead him further to an ideal 

 business and social system for his country and its people. How- 

 ever dispassionately Diiesberg deals with facts, however causti- 

 cally he criticizes deeds, his radiant idealism, his warm love for 

 his woods, his people and his country, his noble enthusiasm for 



