52 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 
of the trees every ten years. By this means he would reduce the 
investment and extend the rotation. The obvious advantages are: 
the reduction of the investment; greater remunerativeness of the 
cuttings; the rotation is extended perhaps 200 years; sylvicultural 
charges are reduced to a minimum; the smaller trees left are cleanest 
and will produce constantly better and better logs. 
On the other hand is the fact that he takes the trees nearest the 
saw-log size and which will have the greatest price increment in the 
next few years. He cuts away the money makers, for these large 
trees (one-seventh of the total number) will furnish go per cent of 
the increment if left. If gaps result, some of the possible increment 
of the next largest trees will escape, weeds will result and the soil 
run wild. 
Under conditions as they existed in Germany a few years ago, 
his method had, from a financial standpoint, much to recommend it, 
and it happens that at Ysenburg even now the difference between 
the price of saw logs and mine props is not very great. As the 
Scotch pine, however, sold at an average of $6 a thousand twenty 
years ago and sells for $14 today (on the stump), few German 
foresters are anxious to reduce their investment, so that Borgrave’s 
system, pure and simple, as is being carried out here to its logical 
end as a matter of experiment, is not apt to be seen elsewhere, 
although the influence of his reasoning is frequently to be noted in 
the system of management practised in many places. 
Another small compartment of the Ysenburg range shows that 
the German forester, like all of us, sometimes makes sad mistakes. 
Oak and Scotch pine in alternating rows, fully 5 feet apart, were 
planted by the “ Tongya”! method 35 years ago. They wanted 
oak, and the pine was meant to be merely an usher growth to pro- 
tect the oak against the frost, which is bad here (the frost level 
being 9 to 10 feet above the level of the soil), and expected to cut 
out the pine as the oak gained a position of independence. Today 
the oaks are nearly gone, having been choked out by the pine in 
spite of attempts to favor the oak by lopping off many of the pines. 
As they are ro feet apart, they look.today like a thicket of Appa- 
lachian scrub pine. 
The oberforster has also been troubled severely in some compart- 
ments by the work of the cutworm upon young plantations, but he 
1Tongya: a term introduced by Schlich, indicating the cultivation of 
potatoes, beans etc., between the rows of young trees for two or three seasons 
to aid the growth of the trees and help offset the expense of planting and 
weeding. 
