236 - Forestry Quarterly. 



the home life of plants. Trees are plants. Therefore the study 

 of the conditions of the home life of trees (silvics) is a sub- 

 division of the study of the conditions of the home life of plants 

 as a whole (plant ecology). 



Plant geography deals with the distribution of plants as indi- 

 viduals or as aggregations. It locates and tabulates the habitats 

 of these individuals or aggregates. It is a census of plant habi- 

 tats. Strictly speaking, such a census could be made (and often 

 has been made) with only a very general knowledge of the causes 

 which have brought the habitats enumerated into existence. A 

 knowledge of the conditions of a habitat and its resultant vegeta- 

 tive structure, however, would increase the efficiency of a plant 

 geographer. The plant geography of the past has been chiefly 

 descriptive, while the modern plant geography is both descriptive 

 and causal. The study of the causal relations is plant ecology; 

 the application of such causal relations is plant geography. The 

 one is concrete, the other discrete ; the latter, the application to 

 wide areas of deductions from the intensive study of small areas. 

 Therefore logically plant geography is a child of plant ecology. 

 I am perfectly well aware that historically there has been no 

 such relationship between them. In fact, so far as actual lineage 

 is concerned the relationship is reversed, but we are discussing 

 now a logical arrangement of the subjects. 



Since silvics is a subdivision of plant ecology, its relation to 

 plant geography is the same as that of plant ecology one degree 

 removed. Silvics is to forest geography as plant ecology is to 

 plant geography. 



I can not see why the two terms Forest Ecology and Sihics 

 may not be considered as synonyms. A forest ecologist study- 

 ing only for botanical purposes would not lose caste by investi- 

 gating the effects of brush disposal and fire upon reproduction. 

 In fact an ecologist would have to go far afield nowadays to study 

 vegetation unmodified by man. He is studying such modifica- 

 tions continuously and he remains a botanist, not a forester or 

 an agriculturist. To say that forest ecology stops the moment 

 practical considerations enter, is similar to saying that the study 

 of the chemical nature of wood is not organic chemistry because 

 the results of the study may be applied to such practical consid- 

 erations as the making of paper. 



