472 Forestry Quarterly. 



method alone is seldom applicable in regenerating stands since it 

 is too unreliable. Aside fromi the danger of windfall, the method 

 presupposes species with seed of great carrying power, and a 

 very receptive soil. Its true role is in connection with artificial 

 regeneration,* where the scattered trees not only introduce a 

 welcome variety of species and age into the regularity of the plan- 

 tation or sowing, but also put on an additional increment greatly 

 accelerated by their free position. Since wind-firmness is requi- 

 site, the method is applicable only to species such as pine, larch 

 and hardwoods with winged seeds (ash, maple, etc.) If more 

 trees' are left, groupwise or singly, the method approaches that 

 of shelterwood regeneration already considered. 



Such, briefly, are the methods of natural regeneration. Their 

 application in Austria will next be considered, but in so doing, 

 the reader should never lose sight of the fact that natural regener- 

 ation is none too reliable, even at the best; for it to succeed re- 

 quires good soil and site. Where seed years are rare and scant, 

 where the soil is unreceptive, where climatic factors are adverse, 

 no good results can be expected. Groups or patches may be re- 

 generated naturally even where conditions at large are adverse ; 

 the point is not to expect Nature to supply everywhere the prompt 

 regeneration which the economic necessities of man and the re- 

 quirement of a sustained yield, dictate. Have patience — or else 

 restock artificially! 



The methods of regeneration in Austria vary according to the 

 species and the accessibility of the region. For example, the sil- 

 vicultural methods in the large pineries south of Vienna are 

 every whit as intensive as those practised in the pineries of 

 Prussia (see Article II of this series). But in the mountain 

 regions — in the Austrian Alps of Western Austria and especially 

 in the long ranges of the Carpathians of Northern Austria — 

 similar conditions are far more extensive than in any parts of 

 Germany or France. The reason is simple — Austria (1900) had 

 an average population of 41 persons per square mile, Germany 

 63 persons per square mile, and France 44 persons per square 

 mile. Furthermore, Austria's population centers in the cities; 

 the agricultural plains and the mountain regions are sparsely in- 

 habited. The timber in some of these mountain regions, espe- 



*See Article III of this series : "Management of Pine in Prussia." 



