108 Germany. 



are avoided by the mixed forest, namely, insects, 

 frost and drought. 



A practice of planting spruce in bunches, origi- 

 nally twelve to twenty plants in a bunch, had been 

 in existence since 1780. This practice increased until 

 1850, and is still in use in the Harz mountains and 

 in eastern Prussia, although the bunches have been 

 reduced so as to contain only from three to five plants, 

 the object of the bunching being to make sure that 

 one or the other of the plants should live. Much 

 discussion as to the merits of this method took place 

 between the old masters, Cotta favoring the small 

 bunches upon the basis of a successful plantation of 

 his own, Hartig and Pfeil opposing it, but finally 

 weakening. Since 1850, however, the practice of 

 setting out single plants has become more general. 



A reaction from the indiscriminate application of 

 the shelterwood method to the hardwoods and of the 

 clearing method to the pine set in during the last 

 quarter of the 19th century under the lead of Burk- 

 hardt and Gayer. These advocated return to mixed 

 forest and to natural regeneration with long periods, 

 approaching a selection forest. Gayer especially, 

 professor of silviculture at Munich, became the fore- 

 most apostle of this school. Yet even to this day, the 

 principles of silvicultural treatment under the many 

 different conditions remain unsettled. On the whole 

 however, with the financial question assiduously 

 brought forward, the clearing system has made most 

 progress, and the selection system has nearly vanished, 

 being replaced by the group method and the shelter- 

 wood system. 



