54 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 
years ago, to oak acorns, very densely; and it appears that this 
method is particularly successful just here, and would seem to be 
preferable and cheaper than waiting for the uncertain and slow 
shelterwood method. 
On other compartments of the Mitteldick range the growth of 
oak has been induced under pine standards, about 120 years old. 
The pines are fine, but the oak is generally crooked in spite of its 
relative density. It is planned gradually to remove the pines, which 
number about 20 to the acre, and see if the oak improves in quality. 
The German forester as a rule loves beech, which is in youth a 
shade-loving species, and one finds a great variety of methods by 
which the beech is utilized in German sylviculture. The German 
forester calls the beech the “ mother of the soil,” possibly because 
it forms an alkaline litter instead of an acid litter as results from 
the fall of the oak foliage. At Mitteldick is to be seen several 
methods of handling beech growth, two of which are rather note- 
worthy. In certain compartments an abundance of beech seeds 
have been sown in drills or furrows beneath rather dense stands of 
Scotch pine about 60 years old. The ‘result is rather startling to the 
American accustomed only to seeing our native forests of pine or 
spruce with only a scanty undergrowth. A dense thicket of beech 
springs up, almost impenetrable in places, and wherever gaps occur 
in the forest crown overhead or where cuttings are made the beech 
rapidly assumes the dominant position, but under the thicker pines it 
remains in suppression for many years, in this respect not unlike the 
spruce. A similar management of beech is to be seen in the 
Darmstadt city forests (plate 3) and in other ranges of the Rhine 
valley. 
Another compartment of mixed oak, beech, hornbeam, and other 
hardwoods had been likewise underplanted with beech seeds in 
furrows, and after an interval of about three years, at which time 
I saw the compartment under a light coat of snow (plate 4), it 
looked not unlike a vast collection of nursery beds containing tiny 
beeches all about of a size. Such operations must naturally follow 
good seed years. 
4 THE FRANKFURT TOWN FORESTS 
- The Frankfurt town forests adjoin the Ysenburg and Mitteldick 
ranges on the north and are therefore most easily reached from 
Ysenburg station. The line separating these ranges is also the 
boundary here between Prussia and Hesse-Darmstadt, so that the 
effects of radically different forest administrations can be seen on 
