A PRIMER OF FORESTRY. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE LIFE OF A TREE. 



The object of forestry is to discover and apply the 

 principles according to which forests are best managed. 

 It is distinct from arboriculture, which deals with indi- 

 vidual trees. Forestry has to do with single trees only 

 as they stand together on some large area whose prin- 

 cipal crop is trees, and which therefore forms part of a 

 forest. (See frontispiece.) The forest is the most highly 

 organized portion of the vegetable world. It takes its 

 importance less from the individual trees which help to 

 form it than from the qualities which belong to it as a 

 whole. Although it is composed of trees, the forest is 

 far more than a collection of trees standing in one 

 place. It has a population of animals and plants pecul- 

 iar to itself, a soil largely of its own making, and a 

 climate different in many ways from that of the open 

 country. Its influence upon the streams alone makes 

 farming possible in many regions, and everywhere it 

 tends to prevent floods and drought. It supplies fuel, 

 one of the first necessaries of life, and lumber, the raw 

 material, without which cities, railroads, and all tbe 

 great achievements of material progress would have 



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