550 Forestry Quarterly. 



truth, virtue and beauty shine through it all like the eyes of the 

 fairy prince shone through the shaggy muzzle of the bear into 

 which he had been changed. The book has a fascination none 

 can withstand, and a value which remains, even if the sober and 

 conservative statesman decide against the changes Diiesberg 

 calls for in the forest and in society and be forced to oppose his 

 scheme in detail. "Der Wald als Erzieher" has sounded the alarm 

 which, however scantily its own ideals are realized, will drag out 

 many practices now accepted on avithority or through thought- 

 lessness or indolence or which are merely conventional, and 

 scrutinize them, test them and finally improve them. The in- 

 dififerent, the self-satisfied, he who is contentedly jogging along 

 in the same round of work and duty his father trod must needs 

 heed this scolding, urging, warning, and withal seductive voice out 

 of the Pomeranian pine forests, and even though, having attended, 

 he returns to his day's work with much head-shaking he will have 

 had his eyes opened to many things and henceforward will regard 

 himself and his work in a dififerent light. 



Diiesberg avowedly intends to introduce something better in 

 place of what he censures without reserve and opposes vigorously. 

 After a short sketch of conditions in the forests of eastern 

 Prussia he outlines the development of forestry. A hundred 

 years ago the mismanaged native forests were turned over to 

 political economists, trained after the fashion of the time but 

 ignorant of any natural science, and by these men their regulation 

 and use were determined upon. The simple, comprehensive style 

 of subdivision into cutting areas and cutting periods was their 

 solution. This plan of necessity resulted in pure stands differing 

 from one another in size, age and species, and since the discon- 

 tinuance of pasturage in the middle of the last century, has also 

 resulted in clear-cutting and planting. Continuing, Diiesberg 

 describes how forest regulation lost its subservience and became 

 a set formula, monotonous and tedious and despised, and how the 

 forest lost its native beauty. 



The following section, "Aufbau des Waldes," treats of the 

 reciprocal relations between the tree and the soil, the principles 

 of tree growth, the interdependence of stem, branches and roots, 

 the root habitus in close and open stands and when isolated, and 

 the productivity of even-aged stands. Every page of this section 

 contains new and shrewd observations and a wealth of detailed 



