106 SILVICULTURE METHODS OF NATURAL REPRODUCTION 



4. AMERICAN VERSUS EUROPEAN SILVICULTURAL SYSTEMS 



Silviculture is a recognized art and is commonly practiced in 

 Europe. According to Hawley, relatively little is known about Amer- 

 ican silviculture. This is attributed to three very definite causes, as 

 follows: 



(a) Silviculture has been practiced to a very limited extent, owing 

 to unfavorable economic conditions and paucity of knowledge of the 

 subject. It requires several decades of experimental work to arrive 

 at a definite silvicultural process as applied even to a single species. 



FIG. 54. Perfect white pine reproduction naturally seeded on pasture land. Seed 

 woods on three sides. Cheshire County, New Hampshire. 



(b) Silvicultural practice is essentially a local problem, varying 

 even between local forests in the same region. Knowledge of the 

 subject develops slowly under such conditions, and several rotations 

 must be used before much experience is acquired. 



(c) The application of the knowledge gained by experience in the 

 treatment of a forest is difficult when such knowledge is only frag- 

 mentary. Silvics, which is the basis of silviculture, is still in its in- 

 fancy, as far as furnishing definite information for the use of 

 practitioners. 



Trees found in America are quite different from those in Europe. 

 There is a very much larger number of good commercial species in 



