12 



not recognize or consider that the forest is not merely a mine, but a repro- 

 ducible resource a living, growing crop, the product of the soil and cli- 

 mate, which can be reproduced ad libitum in even superior quantity and 

 quality to what nature alone and unaided has done. 



His methods of removing the standing timber are not only wasteful, 

 but they decrease the capacity of the land for producing valuable timber. 



By culling out the most valuable kinds, leaving undesirable kinds and 

 poor trees to shade the young growth that may have developed, he prevents 

 the reproduction of a valuable crop, and hence such culled areas, 

 while they still appear as forested, have often lost their entire value as pro- 

 ducers of useful material; the growth on the land being an encumbrance 

 'rather, to be got rid of first, before profitable use of the soil, either for 

 agricultural crops or for useful wood crops, can take place. 



The rational way in treating the resource of virgin woods, from na- 

 tional economic if not from private pocket interest would be as far as pos- 

 sible to prepare first for a desirable reproduction by cutting out the poor 

 kinds and the useless brush, then logging out first only the largest trees of 

 the better kinds with proper precaution against injury to younger growth, 

 and against fires, then gradually, as younger trees grow on, the older ones 

 may be harvested and as much as possible in such a manner'that the young 

 after-growth is given room and light. 



Thus, by mere care in utilizing the resource, not only can all the pro- 

 duct be harvested, but a new crop, increased in quantity, can be secured. 

 From such simple care we come to the finest methods of forestry, for 

 these are only different in the degree of care, hardly in the kind. 



By these methods man makes the forest resource produce easily the 

 treble and quadruple of what it does when left alone ; so that merely by the 

 judicious use the capacity of useful production grows. 



How much intensive management can increase the yield of the re- 

 source may be judged from the experiences of German forest administra- 

 tion. Here the forest resources are nearly if not entirely brought under 

 rational management, and are treated as a crop, constantly furnishing har- 

 vests, and being reproduced without diminishing the wood capital. 



Thus, the rather more extensively managed Prussian government for- 

 ests, which with an area of 6,750,000 acres are perhaps also stocked on 

 poorer soils or are less favorably situated, produced as an average for a 

 series of years 42 cubic feet of timber wood (over 3 inches diameter) per 

 acre, those of Bavaria 55, those of Baden 59, of Wurtemberg 67, while the 

 most intensively managed state forests of Saxony, of only 430,000 acres 

 extent, produced 90 cubic feet of wood per acre per year, of which 68 cubic 

 feet was timber wood, the highest production for such a large area. 



A further illustration of the increase in yield which comes with proper 

 management of this resource is furnished by the Prussian state forest ad- 

 ministration : while during the years from 1829 to 1867 the cut was in- 



