124 North American Forests and Forestry 



proprietor of the wood. Almost self-evident as 

 this appears, the contrary opinion was formerly 

 very common among timber-land holders, lumber- 

 men and others. It still lingers here and there. 

 To some extent the promoters of reform have 

 themselves been at fault for this odd circumstance ; 

 for they have sometimes laid such exclusive stress 

 on the preservation of forests that outsiders could 

 easily be led to think that they wanted all lumber- 

 ing operations to stop. 



Such a misunderstanding cannot last long in an 

 intelligent community, and is rapidly disappear- 

 ing from the public mind. In its place another 

 delusion sometimes takes hold of well meaning 

 people. That is an idea that what is needed con- 

 sists in a transplantation to this country of the 

 forestry system flourishing in some foreign coun- 

 tries, and particularly in Germany. Such a step, 

 if it were possible, would be foolish. Conditions 

 in this and European countries differ so much that 

 what is practicable in one country is often out of the 

 question in another. What we can learn from Ger- 

 many and other countries with highly developed 

 forestry is, not their methods and systems, but the 

 principles on which they are based, for those princi- 

 ples are determined by the universal laws of nature 

 and human society. 



It being understood that forestry is the art of 

 utilizing forests for the advantage of their owners, 

 we will make a great step towards a clear compre- 

 hension of the subject by considering what that 



