IMPRESSIONS OF FORESTRY IN THE SCHWARZWALD. I 73 



provides the regular skilled workman, so necessary for the 

 proper conduct of work in a forest where the operations consist 

 so largely of improvement fellings, and where so much damage 

 might be done by unskilled workmen to young growth, which 

 must receive specially careful treatment during at least one- 

 fourth of the whole period of the rotation. Without this 

 abundant supply of skilled labour it would be impossible to 

 attain to the highly successful results which one finds in the 

 Black Forest. 



On the other hand, if the small-holder does not actually 

 depend on the forest work for his very existence, at anyrate it 

 ameliorates his condition and provides him with a more com- 

 fortable living. The two systems have grown up together more 

 or less, and one might say they are inseparable. 



The small-holder, or the large farmer, very often also does 

 the carrying of the timber (either with oxen or horses) from the 

 forest to the timber merchant's saw-mills in the towns in the 

 valleys. Many industries in the towns also depend on the 

 forest for their existence. 



Concluding Note. 



In putting together the foregoing notes, the writer had no 

 intention of suggesting that the systems of forestry practised in 

 Baden could be adopted wholesale in this country, or that the 

 whole of the Highlands say, or the southern uplands of Scotland, 

 or the North of England fells, might be converted into " one 

 horrid forest." Nor is the preposterous idea put forward that 

 large farms could be successfully broken up in a wholesale 

 fashion into small holdings. The economic conditions of the 

 two countries are in many ways totally different. On the other 

 hand, there are many points of resemblance. There is first 

 the question of the necessary forest labour. Wages in our 

 country are usually high, and it is a good thing they are high, but 

 this does not make the question of planting any simpler. There is 

 a desire for cheapness, and it is a necessary condition of profitable 

 forestry to have the ground stocked at a cheap rate. 



Workmen's wages in Baden are also high, and here again it 

 is a good thing that they are high, and probably the position of 

 a workman in South Germany is much better than that of a 

 workman in North Germany. 



