CHAPTER V 



MAN AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS 



Man, and with him the domestic animals which he 

 controls, are, unfortunately, to be reckoned as the most 

 potent factors in the destruction of forests. On the 

 other hand, it is also man, once he is aware of the 

 necessity of protecting forests, who steps in and saves 

 what remains ; at the same time improving it and in 

 places creating new forest crops for the benefit of future 

 generations. It is this long-deferred reaping of what 

 has been sown which has been, and still is, the 

 greatest obstacle to spending money on forest improve- 

 ment. We foresters have to lay to heart the punning 

 motto inscribed over the doors of a German Forest 

 School : " Wir sehen nicht, was wir saen und saen 

 nicht, was wir sehen " ; 1 and we must not lose courage 

 when present-day financiers, desirous of obtaining quick 

 returns for money invested, demur at the spending 

 of money on crops the benefits of which will accrue to 

 their successors. 



In olden times, when the greater part of the globe 

 was forest-clad, man helped himself to what he required, 

 and allowed his herds to roam uncontrolled wherever 

 convenience or safety, added to a sufficient pasturage, 

 could take them. As the area under forests diminished, 

 the value of their products increased, and the more 

 powerful people or clans excluded others from the 

 benefits of the forest; but they themselves, for a long 



1 " We Bee not what we sow, and sow not what we sec" 



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