NOTES ON A VISIT TO SWITZERLAND AND GERMANY. 305 
In the afternoon we visited one of the municipal forests at 
Zurich. ‘This forest had been used as a coppice-wood for many 
years, but it is now being changed into high-forest, under the 
direction of Herr Ulrich Meister. This inspection took us to the 
summit of the Abishorn, from which we had a magnificent view 
of the country. The city of Zurich in the foreground, with its 
beautiful lake, with many towns on its margins, all lit up by 
brilliant sunlight, and the snow-clad Alps in the background, 
formed a picture which I cherish and shall ever store in my 
mind. 
On the gth June I walked along different compartments of 
the forest, and saw those parts of it which are from 5 to ro and 
70 to 100 years old. The woods are all propagated by natural 
regeneration, and as soon as the crop is partially removed to 
admit light, the soil is almost immediately covered with a great 
variety of species—maple, sycamore, beech, ash, elm, spruce, 
silver fir, etc. In five years thereafter it is as thickly stocked as 
a good crop of oats, and then the tending operations begin. 
First of all labourers remove the small, thin trees, which are mostly 
suppressed, and they are followed by more skilful foresters who 
select the trees that they wish to remain on the ground; and this 
process is followed every five years for the first twenty or twenty- 
five years of the growth of the forest, by which time only the 
most select, straight, well-grown trees, with close even crowns, 
are left. Afterwards the thinning periods are seven years or 
more apart, and the thinnings are directed to further improve 
the final crop. It was interesting to observe how perfectly the 
work was done by the labourers in the first instance. They cut 
out the inferior growths, laying them all with their crowns in one 
direction, and the more skilful foresters who followed continued 
that regular process. After these thinnings had been cut and 
laid on the ground, a number of old men who were employed on 
piece work followed, and drew them on to the adjacent paths 
(which would have been a laborious process but for the way in 
which they were cut and laid down), cut them into lengths of 
from 28 to 30 inches, and bound them up tightly with wire by 
means of a ratchet attached to their packing-barrows. These 
bundles were then piled in stacks, and sledged or carted for 
firewood. The cost of cutting and bundling is 12 francs (gs. 6d.), 
and the value of the faggots in the wood is 45 francs (£1, 153. 
6d.) per hundred. In the afternoon we agam walked up the 
