84 ECONOMICS OF FORESTRY. 



in contradistinction to prairies and plains, meadow 

 and field. 



In the German language, with the more intensive 

 development in the rational treatment of the wood- 

 lands, the limitation is carried farther, the word 

 Forst being specific, and meaning the woods which 

 are placed under management, the woods as an 

 object of man's cultivatory activity, while the term 

 Wald is generic, and refers to the natural condition 

 of the soil cover. In the English language this 

 distinction has not yet become settled ; especially 

 in the United States the lexicographers seem to 

 consider large extent and virgin or natural growth, 

 an absence of cultivation, as distinctive attributes 

 to the word forest, while the word woodlands is 

 vaguely and inconsistently defined as the generic 

 term for land covered or interspersed with trees 

 and of less extent than forest, or else land on which 

 " trees are suffered to grow either for fuel or tim- 

 ber " (Webster), accentuating thereby relation to 

 the uses of man. (See Appendix.) 



Etymology, linguistic sense, and as we believe 

 actual usage, especially in the literature of later 

 times, since the subject of forests and forestry has 

 become prominent, would warrant us to define, more 

 precisely, woodland as the general or generic 

 term for land naturally covered with woody growth 

 in contradistinction to land not so covered ; forest 

 as the restricted or specific term, namely, woodland 

 whether of natural growth or planted by man, con- 



