CURRENT LITERATURE. 



Forest Regulation, or the Preparation and Development of Forest 

 Working Plans. Vol. I, Michigan Manual of Forestry. By 

 Filibert Roth. 1914. 218 pp., 8°. Published by the author. 



To anyone who knows the author of this textbook, his person- 

 ality reveals itself on every page. As was to be expected, orig- 

 inality of treatment characterizes the book. 



There are two methods of approaching a complicated subject, 

 the analytical or the synthetical, the deductive or the inductive, 

 coming from the concrete to the abstract or the reverse. Professor 

 Roth prefers the former, or empirical method, and hence starts 

 with the description of a concrete case of "German forestry 

 business," and follows it up with the description of "an American 

 case." Throughout the book the effort is made to keep in close 

 company with practical problems, and in this lies its principal value 

 as compared with other textbooks. At the same time in this 

 method lies also a defect as a manual, for it leads to diffusive 

 discussions of matters that have only a distant bearing on the 

 main topic, and the systematic disposition of material is somewhat 

 hampered. To give an example, the normal forest idea, which, 

 consciously or unconsciously, is fundamental to the whole scheme 

 of forest organization, appears as it were incidentally in the middle 

 of the book when the methods of budget regulation are being 

 discussed. Especially in the absence of an index this lack in the 

 arrangement of matter somewhat disturbs easy reference. Yet 

 this fault is of minor consequence, and we would rather lose this 

 point than hamper the interest which is kept up in these dis- 

 cussions from cover to cover. 



In passing, we may note two minor defects we have found in the 

 description of European methods of budget regulatioti (regulation 

 of the cut). The essential of Judeich's age class method is dis- 

 missed with a brief sentence, "the condition of younger stands is 

 also considered." Upon this consideration, however, and the 

 manner in which it is done rests the method: it is, as the name 

 implies, its characteristic. 



In discussing the Hundeshagen method, which the author seems 



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