TRANSFORMATION- OF WILD OR NATURAL WOODS. 143 



By inducing our State to enlarge its wooded area 

 in the Adirondacks and to introduce there a meth- 

 odical management, we should urge this measure 

 for the sole reason, that this is the only means to pre- 

 serve the forest-growth upon the woodlands containing 

 the watersheds of our principal rivers permanently, and 

 that without a permanent forest-growth upon these lands, 

 the continuance of a regular water-flow to the rivers 

 would be greatly endangered. That the State woods will 

 yield lateron a revenue, if managed on business princi- 

 ples, cannot be doubted. But we should not expect such 

 a result during the next generation. The income ob- 

 tained at present by European Governments from their 

 well-managed forests, may serve as an example of what a 

 well-conducted administration of forests may be able to 

 perform. However, it would be a very erroneous concep- 

 tion of the present desolate condition of our State forests 

 and of the wide disproportion between the value of lum- 

 ber and the cost of both labor and transportation, as we 

 find in our country, if we should expect with the intro- 

 duction of a methodical forest management, to at once 

 obtain the same pecuniary results which the European 

 governments have realized through a well-organized forest 



of its forests, there will be made undoubtedly many offers to serve the 

 commonwealth. 



In this connection it may be of interest to our forestry students to 

 learn that the tendency of European experts in sylviculture, contrary 

 to former practices in the management of forests, is lately directed to a 

 more close observation of Nature's workings in the wild forests. They 

 try now to sustain their theories from facts suggested to them by Nature, 

 rather than to follow the narrow paths outlined by old authorities. 

 Whereas formerly the European forester advocated the cultivation of 

 forests with pure stock, divided in blocks with adequate revolutions of 

 cutting and replanting, the present generation acknowledges in many 

 respects the great advantages of the natural woods, and recommends 

 now in the establishment of new forests, mixed planting, and in their 

 exploitation the selection of single trees, instead of the former complete 

 clearing of entire wood areas. 



