MODERN FORESTRY 



depths of the forest itself. There was need 

 of the axe and saw, for the forest had long 

 been ripe for the harvest. Indeed, it was plain 

 that the trees now growing would have been 

 much larger, and in all ways better, if in some 

 past day approved forestry methods had been 

 in vogue. 



A few years later I had occasion to pass 

 through the same region. The whole wretched 

 tale of greed and wastage lay before me. 

 Where the noble forest had stood was only a 

 long reach of barren land, swept by fires a 

 blackened dismal waste of death. The land 

 was absolutely non-agricultural. It was unfit- 

 ted for agriculture, both by climate and soil, 

 it was preeminently and absolutely forest land 

 alone. Not a tree had been left standing. Even 

 the little ones, barely more than saplings, had 

 been cut away in the ravenous desire to strip 

 the earth. Not the slightest effort had been 

 made to reforest the region, much less to leave 

 standing the unmerchantable timber. All the 

 conditions most admirably favored the con- 

 tinuance of the forest, and, if ordinary common 

 sense and an ordinary regard for the future 

 had been consulted, the forest would have 



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