CHAPTER XI 



REFORM IN FORESTRY METHODS 



IT would be impossible to fix the year when the 

 agitation for better methods of treating forest 

 resources in the United States began. In the writ- 

 ings of scientific men, as well as of travellers and 

 lovers of scenery and outdoor life, of more than fifty 

 years ago, one occasionally finds expressions of re- 

 gret that our forests are being wasted. Gradually 

 the number of such expressions increases. Writers 

 begin to call attention to the evil effects deforesta- 

 tion must exercise on climate, waterflow, and fer- 

 tility of soil. But for a very long time no practical 

 remedies are suggested, nor is the question ap- 

 proached in a systematic and business-like manner. 

 It is a peculiar feature of the history of American 

 forestry that the impetus towards reform began 

 with botanists and other scientific men on the one 

 hand, horticulturists and landscape gardeners on 

 the other. It was far different in Europe, and 

 especially Germany, when about the middle of the 

 eighteenth century the need of a more rational 

 treatment of forests first attracted wide-spread 

 attention. There it was from an economic and 

 financial standpoint that the question was first 



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