CHAPTER IV. 



SYLVICULTURE. 



IN so far as the modern scientific forest economy^ of 

 Continental Europe may arrest the continuous destruc- 

 tion of forests, and secure their conservation, to the full 

 extent of that it has been a blessing to the world, and 

 may be considered to have done what was required in the 

 interests of the present and the future holders of this 

 portion of the national possessions in the lands in which 

 it has been adopted. But in connection with this, and 

 without detriment to it, with benefit on the contrary to 

 all concerned, something may be done to make this trust 

 estate more productive, and to add to it, by restoring 

 again to some extent what has been taken away effecting 

 thus the extension as well as the conservation and 

 improvement of the existing forests. And this is being 

 done by sylvicultural operations in various parts. 



The term Sylviculture, with its synonyms in different 

 languages, is a term in as general use in discourse on 

 such subjects on the Continent as is the term Arboricul- 

 ture in Britain. In desultory converse the two words 

 may be used as interchangeable terms ; but neither in 

 theory nor in etymological structure are they synony- 

 mous: The matters to which they respectively refer may 

 be said to differ as completely as do domestic and 

 political economy. The one relates to the culture of the 

 tree as a tree, the other to the culture of a wood, the 

 constituents of which are trees, as the constituents of 

 the tree are leaves and their rootlets, but having, like the 

 tree, a corporate existence as a whole. And the culture 



