A VISIT TO THE THURINGIAN FOREST. 109 
very deep, but seldom rough from the presence of boulders or 
stones, 
The flora resembles that of the lowlands of Scotland, but is 
more extensive, including many of our hill plants, which, how- 
ever, are more luxuriant than in the Scottish glens and hill-sides. 
The various trees grown are all common in Britain, and consist 
mostly of Norway spruce, silver fir, Scots pine, beech, oak, and 
hornbeam. Of these the Norway spruce may be considered the 
tree of the forest, covering, as it does, a much greater area than 
all the others combined. It shall therefore take the premier 
place in the following attempt to describe the practice of sylvi- 
culture in this forest land. 
What the stranger is most struck with on entering this vast 
range of woodland, is the tallness and cleanness of the trees, and 
the great wealth of timber on a given space. If, as we shall 
suppose, he has first dipped into a portion where the trees are 
full grown and ready to fell, let him proceed eastward, which is 
the course of the prevailing strong winds, and he will soon come 
to the open where the last belt of trees, running at right angles 
to the wind, has been clean cut. Let him continue his course 
eastward, and in the space of a hundred yards or two he will 
come on young plantation lately formed, stretching away to right 
and left. This little experience shows that the Thuringian forester 
cuts his mature timber clean off the ground in narrow belts, and 
he follows up two years, or so, later by planting, generally with 
the same variety of tree, the long narrow belts which he has been 
clearing of the old timber, perpendicular with the course of the 
strong winds, always working against the wind belt by belt. 
Felling is carried out in winter or early spring, the trees being 
often peeled of their bark (which is used in the manufactures), 
and the trunks in many instances allowed to lie on the ground as 
high and dry as possible until removed at convenience in course 
of the summer. There was very little appearance of rot or decay 
of any kind in several belts of thrown timber examined, 
We have already seen that the mature timber is composed 
of trees of great height. They show clean stems of 50, 60, 
70, and frequently more feet from the ground to the first 
branch, producing beautiful cylindrical columns with very little 
taper to the eye, the finer and taller trees being grown on the 
lower parts of steep hills, in glens and ravines. When at the 
age for clearing, which is a hundred years or a few years more, 
