32 TRANSACTIONS OF THE |DEC. 3, 
the Duke was largely confined to this montainous region, called 
the Harz, von Langen devised a plan by which care was taken 
always to have a sustained growth of wood and a natural restora- 
tion of the forest. This man, who is justly considered the 
principal founder of the present system of scientific forest- 
management, had always in the execution of his work young 
men for his assistants, to whom he imparted theoretical and 
practical instruction, and from a body of such men he estab- 
lished in the year 1772 the first school of forestry. At this 
school arrangements were made for forestal experimental re- 
search; and everything was done to reduce the practical results 
to a scientific basis. For this reason, the advanced forest- 
economy of to-day is rightly called Scientific Forestry; and, if 
we would know what this means, it is, first, the maintenance of 
a sustained forestal production from a certain area; second, the 
natural regeneration of these forests; and third, a progressive 
improvement of the forest in place of former deterioration. 
Now, gentlemen, you may say, this is all very well; but how 
about the expenses? Does it pay to manage forests in the ex- 
pensive way just mentioned, even on the poor soil of the moun- 
tains ? This question can undoubtedly be answered in the 
affirmative, supposing the management to be placed in the 
hands of experts and not given to mere politicians. I recently 
had before me an official publication issued every year by the 
German government, in regard to the average production of 
wood in the State forests and the revenues derived therefrom. 
These publications are very instructive, and serve much to 
encourage the introduction of scientific forest-culture on the 
estates of corporations and private persons in that country. 
From a publication of this kind for the year 1856, I perceive 
that the management of the 250,000 acres of Government for- 
ests in the little dukedom of Brunswick above mentioned, in- 
volved an expense of $278,000, or about one dollar per acre, and 
that the income for that year was $635,000, or about two dollars 
and a quarter per acre. ‘The net proceeds of an acre of wood- 
land were therefore about one dollar and a quarter. Very in- 
teresting is the same publication, issued thirty years later, in 
1886, from which we see that, after deducting the expenses, 
amounting to about two dollars per acre, the income of the for- 
ests, not only in Brunswick but in all other parts of Germany, 
had increased to over two dollars per acre by this management. 
Considering that in the densely populated Old World only such 
soil is allowed to be kept in wood as is unfit for agricultural 
purposes, it will be seen that, leaving out of the question the 
beneficial climatic influences and other economic advantages, 
