60 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
good generally that so much land is lying useless, or only 
cultivated at a loss to its owner. And it cannot be fair to place 
the responsibility for such a waste of the soil on any one individual 
or set of individuals. We are told, of course, that the planting 
of trees does not pay, and the same arguments for non-action are 
repeated usque ad nauseam. Such excuses, for they are apologeti- 
cally offered, would not commend themselves—even if there were 
no colonial requirements to consider—to an estate administered 
with an eye to the future as well as to the present, such as we 
see in the district of Hesse Nassau. If the Nassau State forests 
are regulated as to their felling and replanting, on what is known 
as the rotation system, the land generally is utilised in perpetuity 
somehow. It is not all capable of producing the world-renowned 
Johannisberger wine, nor can its uplands compete with its valleys 
in the production of corn, but where fruit and grain cannot be 
cultivated, there is room for the useful rye and the needful forest. 
Each part has its capacity noted on the field map, each part 
contributes its share to the general good. 
I have endeavoured, in the accompanying Map of the topography 
of the district of the Taunus, one of the principal ranges of Hesse 
Nassau, and containing some of her most important forests, to 
give effect to this partition of the capacity of the soil; and I trust 
that my feeble efforts in this direction may be leniently dealt 
with, and measured rather for what they aim at than what they 
really are, for in carefully sketched field maps I see the beginning 
of practical forestry, as well as of practical agriculture, geology, 
or anything else. In forestry, as well as in other science, we 
must have a clear idea of where we are driving to, before we enter 
on any decisive course of action. 
DuTIES OF THE Oper FORSTER TO INDIVIDUALS. 
The details of such cultivation in Nassau are settled by what 
IT may call the county and municipal councils of the country, 
of which the Ober Forster is ea-officio a prominent and important 
member, He can, in effect, place his veto upon any action, such 
as prodigal cutting and the devotion of an undue proportion of 
the area of the country to the cultivation of agricultural produce, 
absolutely. He must be jealous, too, of what is known as the 
“possibility ”—that is, the fair yield of the forests—being en- 
dangered or exceeded. But he is, at the same time, no arbitrary 
