50 THE NEW FORESTRY. 



of all these, it is of no value but for firewood." His method 

 of producing trees of this kind was the wrong one the 

 pruning knife ; but his object was to secure the same ends 

 as the Continental forester aims at in crowding, viz., the 

 removal of the lower branches. Mr. Salmon began cutting the 

 lower branches off when the trees were five or six years old, 

 and kept on at it every few years till the stem of the tree was 

 clear up to a height of forty feet or thereabout, after which 

 such " side lopping " was left to nature. 



SECTION II. THE NEW FORESTRY. 



This is really Nature's system, and is practically the system 

 reduced to method and adopted on the Continent. There is 

 nothing novel about it, nor, as far as we are aware, has it ever 

 been claimed that the system originated in those countries 

 where it is practised so successfully. All that has been done 

 has been to maintain and extend the forests on principles 

 derived from a close study of nature, and that is all. Were 

 it not that the trees in the later German forests are seen to 

 have been planted in rows, or in some kind of formal order, 

 the visitor could not tell the artificially planted sections from 

 those that had grown up naturally. Much of the timber 

 imported to this country from Germany and Northern Europe 

 is from purely natural forests from Russia, Sweden, and 

 Norway, almost wholly so ; while from the natural forests of 

 America, Asia, Africa, and the Colonies, come vast quantities 

 of timber of all descriptions, rivalling, if not surpassing, the 

 productions of the scientifically-managed forests of Europe, 

 and produced under exactly the same conditions unaided by 

 the cultural hand of man. 



Reduced to practice then, this system consists in the 

 division of the forest into areas and compartments in which 

 the timber crops are regulated on a strict rotation system 

 according to the species ; in the reproduction of crops by seed, 

 or by plants raised in the forest nurseries from seed and 

 planted out small ; in planting thickly, so as to cover the 

 ground speedily ; in crowding the trees judiciously at all stages, 

 so as to secure height growth and clean cylindrical trunks ; 

 and in thinning sparingly at long intervals. The rotation 

 period determines the length of time that any crop of timber 

 shall occupy the ground, and is regulated more by the size of 

 the trees than their maturity. It is found that the Scotch fir 



