362 SYLVICULTURE. 



send out a new progeny as before. This is tlie cheapest method 

 of management, and therefore the best wherever the price of 

 labor and of capital bears a high proportion to that of land and 

 of timber ; but it is essentially a wasteful economy.* If the wood- 

 land is, in the first place, completely cut over, as is found most 

 convenient in practice, the yomig shoots have neither the shade 

 nor the protection from wind so important to forest growth, and 

 their progress is comparatively slow, while, at the same time, the 

 thick clumps they form choke the seedhngs that may have 

 sprouted near them.f The evergreens, once cut, do not shoot up 

 again,:}: and the mixed character of the forest — in many respects 



* "In America," says Clave (pp. 124, 125), "where there is a vast extent of 

 land almost without pecuniary value, but where labor is dear and the rate of 

 interest high, it is profitable to till a large surface at the least possible cost ; 

 extensive cultivation is there the most advantageous. In England, France and 

 Germany, where every corner of soil is occupied, and the least bit of ground 

 is sold at a high price, but where labor and capital are comparatively cheap, 

 it is wisest to employ intensive cultivation All the efforts of the culti- 

 vator ought to be directed to the obtaining of a given result with the least 

 sacrifice, and there is equally a loss to the commonwealth if the application of 

 improved agricultural processes be neglected where they are advantageous, or 



if they be employed where they are not required In this point of 



view, sylviculture must follow the same laws as agriculture, and, like it, be 

 modified according to the economical conditions of different states. In coun- 

 tries abounding in good forests, and thinly peopled, elementary and cheap 

 methods must be pursued ; in civilized regions, where a dense population re- 

 quires that the soil shall be made to produce all it can yield, the regular arti- 

 ficial forest, with all the processes that science teaches, should be cultivated. 

 It would be absurd to apply to the endless woods of Brazil and of Canada the 

 method of the Spessart by 'double stages,' but not less so in our country, 

 where every yard of ground has a high value, to leave to nature the task of 

 propagating trees, and to content ourselves with cutting, every twenty or 

 twenty -five years, the meagre growths that chance may have produced." 



f In ordinary coppices, there are few or no seedlings, because the young 

 shoots are cut before they are old enough to mature fertile seed, and this is 

 one of the strongest objections to the system. 



X It was not long ago stated, upon the evidence of the Government forest- 

 ers of Greece, and of the queen's gardener, that a large wood had been dis- 

 covered in Arcadia, consisting of a fir which had the property of sending up 

 both vertical and lateral shoots from the stump of felled trees and forming a 

 new crown. It was at first supposed that this forest grew only on the " moun- 

 tains," of which the hero of About's most amusing story, Le Roi des Montagues, 

 was "king"; but stumps, with the shoots attached, have been sent to Ger- 

 many, and recognized by able botanists as true natural products, and the fact 



