Forest Types of Baden. 457 



and the process repeated. This forest should now be gradually 

 converted into a regular High Forest. 



Perhaps the only instance where the selection system is ex- 

 cusable in the Black Forest is in the forests near timber-line. 

 Here the increment is only about i to 4 cubic meters per hectare 

 ( 15 to 60 cubic feet per acre) and the stands consist of Spruce and 

 Scotch Pine with here and there a Silver Fir. These stands are 

 open, or the trees stand in small groups and allow no heavy fell- 

 ings, nor is it possible to make cultures, hence irregular fellings 

 are made here and there of trees of the best class. 



10. The Grinde Forest. This type consists of great moors 

 covered with open stands of Mountain Pine, and Scotch Pine, 

 with a few Spruce, Moutain Ash, Sorbus aria, Birch and Alder. 



They are considered as hunting grounds, but 30-40 years ago 

 attempts were made on a somewhat large scale to drain these peat 

 bogs and sow Spruce on artificial banks. This was a failure and 

 a mistake. 



To begin with the increment in these high altitudes is so small 

 that the financial results from the cultures would be absolutely 

 nil, and secondly the existence of peat moors in this locality is of 

 much greater economic value than the presence of a few half 

 crippled Spruce stands, as the former act as water reservoirs from 

 which the forests on the whole mountain sides derive an enormous 

 benefit during the dry weather. 



It may be noted that these attempts at cultures have been given 

 up many years ago, as it was found they would not grow, and the 

 forest has been left to assume its original character which is that 

 of a natural park and an excellent hunting ground. 



This completes the general description of the forest types in 

 Baden, but, of course, there are many modifications of these types, 

 and in many cases they merge into one another so that the 

 boundary line between two different types is not clearly defined. 

 Nor does the writer intend to infer that such methods of silvi- 

 culture as he may have criticized are the methods everywhere 

 practised in Baden without exception, but he has only written his 

 impressions of the forests he has seen, and has criticized the 

 methods usually in force. 



