57 



see in the German forest. The only difference between lumberman and 

 forester is that the latter must provide for a new crop as valuable, or more 

 so, than nature made it. 



You will see that the forester is not after the beauty, but after the sub- 

 stance of the tree ; he, like the logger, uses the axe to harvest the crop, nay 

 he utilizes the forest even more closely than the lumberman ; for he must in 

 some way make use of the inferior kinds and parts, the tops and branches, 

 and even, if necessary, he must spend some money in making useful or else 

 removing the brushwood. This is often impracticable, and by so much the 

 forester is impeded in his main business by the economic and market con- 

 ditions. He must do some "dead work,'' in order to create conditions fav- 

 orable for his main business, and his main business is to secure a new and 

 better crop of wood from the same soil for the future. He is not satisfied 

 with the mere harvest of what nature has accumulated, leaving it to nature 

 to do as it pleases in replacing the harvest ; but he feels himself obligated to 

 provide systematically for a future and better crop than nature alone could 

 produce. 



The forester's song is not "Woodman, spare that tree," but "Wood- 

 man, cut that tree judiciously," so that a new generation may arise where it 

 stood. 



Under the forester's care, then, the trees will be cut and removed, but 

 the forest will persist. He is the preserver of the forest, not in the manner 

 in which the public is often made to believe, namely, by preventing the use 

 of the wood, but as all life is preserved, by removing the old and fostering 

 the young growth. He is a sower as well as a reaper, a planter as well as 

 a logger, for forestry is, with regard to wood crops, what agriculture is, 

 with regard to food crops. 



He may secure this new crop either by cutting off and removing all 

 the old crop and replanting the ground, a method which is often the only 

 possible one with our mismanaged virgin woods, where the useful species 

 have been eliminated or where fire has destroyed all the old timber. Or 

 else he may secure it from the seeds of the trees already on the ground, by 

 skilful management of the light conditions, gradually removing the mother 

 trees and securing what is called a natural regeneration. , 



In the latter case, before he utilizes the kinds for which he wishes to 

 perpetuate the forest, he culls the inferior and leaves, until they have repro- 

 duced, only the more useful ; he gives direction and assists in the struggle 

 for supremacy the most fit ; he substitutes artificial selection for natural 

 selection, assuring the protected survival of the most useful. The forester's 

 forest, then, differs from nature's forest, developed under the laws of 

 natural evolution ; for he introduces the economic point of view. And, when 

 he finally gathers the harvest, he secures not only a larger total and more 

 valuable product for the present, but a reproduction of only the best kind 

 for the future. 



