WHAT FORESTRY IS 81 



valuable to the community. That is one example of what for- 

 estry has done. 



Germany, a country that probably leads the world today in 

 the practice of forestry, was once so devastated of trees by 

 wasteful cutting that in certain regions she adopted drastic 

 measures to ward off timber famine. The cutting of May trees 

 was prohibited. The number of wooden houses in a community 

 was limited. Fences were supplanted by hedges and ditches. 

 Extreme measures these, and only justified by absolute forest 

 poverty. Then forestry came into practice and the German for- 

 ests have been brought to a high state of productivity. But in 

 spite of all she can do Germany is unable to produce enough 

 timber for her people. Each year she is forced to import mil- 

 lions of tons of lumber. It is simply a case of needing more 

 wood than her available forest lands are able to produce. 



France for a time destroyed her forests recklessly, especially 

 during the long debauch of wealth and resources that at- 

 tended the revolution. Soon she began to suffer, both from a 

 scarcity of building timber and from destructive floods. Today 

 she, too, practices forestry and, possessing a more favorable 

 climate than Germany, is able to grow more wood on an acre 

 of forest land than her great rival. 



Great Britain, although she has practically no forests in the 

 British Isles, has placed large areas of her colonial forests under 

 scientific management. India has one of the best forestry de- 

 partments in the world. The bulk of Canada's forests are on 

 lands owned by the Crown and government foresters manage 

 these woodlands on forestry principles. 



But forestry is far from being a universal practice throughout 

 the world. Even with increasing demand for lumber and with 



