5© TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Notes on German Forestry : Reflections of 

 A French Forester. 



In looking through the last volume of the Transactions of 

 our Society, I read with keen interest the " Notes on German 

 Forestry." It was a real pleasure for me to learn that the 

 general cry of the German foresters was now "back to nature," 

 and that they had learnt from their failures to avoid clear 

 cutting, to mix species, to adopt long rotations, and not to 

 attempt to raise a species much outside its natural habitat. 



It is the whole of French silviculture they have just discovered. 

 These very methods they purpose applying, have all been taught 

 for now nearly a century in our School of Nancy. I only want 

 to bring forward, in proof of this assertion, the few following 

 quotations taken at random from the lectures and books of 

 the former masters of the school. 



Lorentz and Parade,^ the founders of forest education in France, 

 sum up their methods in this way : — " Steady production, natural 

 rege?ie ration, progressive improvement, such, in the abstract, 

 is the aim of the culture of forests." 



Parade, who was Director of the School of Nancy and 

 taught silviculture from 1838 to 1864, formulated this principle : — 

 " To imitate nature, to accelerate her work, such is the funda- 

 mental maxim of silviculture." 



This quotation serves as a motto to the treatise on Silvi- 

 culture, by Boppe, who was Professor at the School between 

 1881 and 1898. 



Mathieu,2 Professor at the School from 1838 to 1880, clearly 

 showed the danger of raising species unfitted to a region : 

 " To neglect such good and old friends (the indigenous species), 

 the services of which are certain, for unknown, exotic plants, 

 would be rather unwise, and really nobody intends doing so." 



And to all these ideas public attention was once more drawn 

 by Tassy,^ Conservator of Forests and Professor of Forest 



^ Lorentz and Parade, Elementary Lectures on Forest Culture, preface of 

 the ist edition, 1837. 



•^ Mathieu, Re-afforesting and Ke-turfing \v\. the Alps, 1865. 



^ Tassy, Preface to the 5th edition of Elementary Lectures on Forest 

 Culture, by Lorentz and Parade, 1867. 



