DIVISION OF FORESTRY. 187 



a crop, lie must consider and prepare conditions which will favor the 

 best and quickest development of his crop for a given purpose. 

 And, as his crop should be a paying one, he must consider the cheap- 

 est and surest methods of preserving favorable conditions for it. 

 W]iih\ therefore, mulching may be a very good thing for tree 

 growth, it will prove in most cases too expensive in forestry; and 

 while plowing and cultivating may be the best method for the nursery, 

 to keep out weeds and stimulate groAvth, for forest purposes other 

 methods might be economically substituted. Again, while turfing 

 under the lawn tree improves the object of the tree, viz, its beauty, 

 it can only injure its object in the forest, which is wood production. 

 In the limited scope of this report it will not be possible to do more 

 than indicate the most important general principles. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF FORESTRY. 



1. A careful and constant preservation of soil humidity and pre- 

 vention of its undue exhaustion by surface evaporation. 



2. Such choice and arrangement of species as will aid each other 

 and not impede their best or the desired development. 



3. For financial reasons, such methods of initial and later manage- 

 ment as will reduce the expense of labor to a minimum. 



4. For continuity of the least expensive forestry system such meth- 

 ods as will reproduce the forest naturally. 



Regard to the first principle requires a constant and continuous 

 protection of the soil against the drjring influences of sun and wind. 

 It is mainly for this that close planting has been, or is to be, recom- 

 mended. The war against underbrush and the notion of a "clean 

 grove," in which the trimming of "superfluous" branches and twigjs 

 occupies the loving care of the amateur planter, are two niDnstrosi- 

 ties, against which a serious protest should be made for the sake of 

 successful forestry. 



On the other hand, the weeds which spring up under the partial 

 shade of the tree growth cannot be counted, as some writers have 

 done, desirable undergrowth. They are not "nurses" but "curses" 

 of forestry. In Russia, on the arid steppes, where the hot sun and 

 dry winds favor rapid evaporation, the first step of the forester is the 

 creation of an underbrush, often with a quick-growing willow {Salix 

 pruinosa) which prepares favorable conditions for its betters. 



Therefore, where land is to be devoted to forestry — and this should 

 }3roperly be such as cannot be utilized for agricultural purposes — the 

 first object of the planter should be to cover the ground as quickly as 

 possible with a dense wood-growth, which by its shade will create its 

 own conditions of vigorous growth: increased and longer-available 

 soil-humidity. 



In their youth most tree plants have a more or less dense foliage, 

 but with increased age a tendency to thin out is manifested in dif- 

 ferent degrees by different species. The condition of the soil, espe- 

 cially its depth, the nature of the subsoil, moisture and drainage, and 

 also climate, modify the tendency in the different species. The wal- 

 nut, generally a shady tree, on thin soil soon appears with a thin 

 foliage. The birches, usually among the trees needing most light, 

 will endure considerable shade on a fresh, humus soil. 



A classification of trees according to this tendency is of importance 

 for the forest planter, as he must keep nis ground shaded through the 

 long period of forest growing. The shady trees which preserve their 



