FOREST EXPLOITATION. 33 



retained in the treatment of European forests under pecu- 

 liar or special circumstances.' 



In a volume entitled Reports on Forest Management in 

 Germany, Colonel Campbell- Walker has said : ' The main 

 object aimed at in any system of scientific forestry is, in 

 the first instance, the conversion of any tract or tracts of 

 natural forests, which generally contain trees of all ages 

 and descriptions, young and old, good and bad, growing 

 too thickly in one place and too thinly in another, into 

 what is termed in German, a geschlossener Bestand (close or 

 compact forest), consisting of trees of the better descrip- 

 tions, and of the same age or period, divided into blocks, 

 and capable of being worked, i.e., thinned out, felled, and 

 reproduced or replanted, in rotation, a block or part of a 

 block being taken in hand each year. In settling and 

 carrying out such a system, important considerations and 

 complications present themselves, such as the relation of 

 the particular block, district, or division, to the whole 

 forest system of the province; the requirements of the 

 people not only as regards timber and firewood, but straw, 

 litter, and leaves for manure and pasturage ; the geologi- 

 cal and chemical formation and properties of the soil ; and 

 the situation as regards the prevailing winds, on which 

 the felling must always depend, in order to decrease the 

 chances of damage to a minimum ; measures for precau- 

 tions against fires, the ravages of destructive insects, tres- 

 pass, damage, or theft by men and cattle. All these must 

 be taken into consideration and borne in mind at each 

 successive stage. Nor must it be supposed that when 

 once an indigenous forest has been mapped, valued, and 

 working plans prepared, the necessity for attending to all 

 such considerations is at an end. On the contrary, it is 

 found necessary to have a revision of the working plan 

 every ten or twenty years. It may be found advisable to 

 change the crop as in agriculture, to convert a hard wood 

 into a coniferous forest, or vice versa, to replace oak by 

 beech, or to plant up (unter bau) the former with spruce or 



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