I04 



Canadian Forestry Joiiryial. 



preserved by the King of Bavaria. 

 We wiere met at the station by one 

 of the forest guards, who took us 

 through a portion of the forest to 

 the nursery, where his chief, the As- 

 sessor, met us. This was our first 

 experience of an artificially planted 

 forest and we were much impressed 

 by the extraordinarily regular 

 growth of the trees — acres upon 

 acres of tall straight stems of clean 

 growth, free from all lower branches. 



There was no underbrush of any 

 kind, nothing but tall stems about 

 four to five metres apart, growing 

 out of a carpet of damp moss, with 

 a perfect canopy overhead without 

 gaps or breaks. It is a ver,y im- 

 pressive siffht to see so regular a 

 crop of timber, practically all of one 

 species (spruce in this case). 



The roads are carefully laid out 

 at right angles and at regular inter- 

 vals to give convenient access to all 

 parts of the forest. 



To describe the appearance of this 

 forest it is necessary to say a few 

 words on the rotation system, which 

 is so universally practiced in scienti- 

 fic forestry. 



This Drineiple is founded on the 

 clean-cutting of a fixed portion each 

 year and its immediate replanting, 

 either artificially or by natural re- 

 generation. To carry this out, in a 

 logical manner, it is necessary to cul- 

 tivate the varieties which mature 

 within a certain time. The usual 

 practice with spruce, in Bavaria, is 

 to take from 90 to 100 years as the 

 time necessary for a crop to com- 

 plete the quickest and consequently 

 the most profitable nortion of its 

 growth, by the end of which period 

 it will have reached a diameter of 

 sixteen to twenty inches at the butt. 

 If left longer the trees would still 

 increase in size, but at a rapidly 

 diminishing rate. 



Having decided upon the variety 

 and the time required for its devel- 

 opment into profitable timber, the 

 next step in creating an artificial 

 forest on the rotation system is to 

 plant an enual portion each year un- 



til the whole is planted up in the 

 period allowed for the timber to 

 reach its profitable development. 

 Thus if you have 1,000 acres to plant 

 in spruce, which you propose to cut 

 at the age of a hundred years, you 

 would plant ten acres a year, until 

 the whole was planted. The first 

 clean cutting would only begin at the 

 end of one hundred years, when the 

 oldest ten acres would be cut and 

 immediately replanted ; every suc- 

 ceeding year another ten acres would 

 be cut and immediately replanted. 

 Having once established your forest, 

 you may thus count upon ten acres 

 of fully developed trees every year, 

 for all time to come. 



The above is a brief statement of 

 tlip rotation principle, leaving out 

 of account such questions as the 

 number of trees to be planted to an 

 acre, the extent to which, and age 

 when, thinnings should be made and 

 whether the replanting should be 

 done artificially or by natural re- 

 generation. 



Forstenrieder Park is a very per- 

 fect example of a forest artificially 

 planted on the rotation system. 

 Trees are seen at all stages of 

 growth, from fully developed' trees, 

 ready to cut down, to seedlings only 

 just planted. 



Forest Planting. 



The young trees are reared in a 

 nursery in the forest itself, under as 

 natural conditions as possible. They 

 are planted out in rows, at the age 

 of two to four years, and at regular 

 intervals of fovir feet each way, or 

 about 2,700 trees to an English acre. 

 The object is to create a perfect can- 

 opy as quickly as possible, the 

 branches meeting at an early age and 

 the upward race starting at the out- 

 set. As time goes on the stronger 

 trees overtop and crowd out the 

 weaker ones, an overhead canopy is 

 formed which causes the lower 

 branches to die off, and tall clean 

 stems are the result. 



Thus, in a German forest, nature 

 does its own work and no artificial 



