HAS THE BLACK FOREST GONE ? 



483 



Photograph by C. W. Armstrong 



Note the orderly ranks of spruce and fir thriving under intensive forest management directed by Germany's 



best foresters. 



handle their operations on the basis of yield and cost 

 per acre, or rather per hectare, which is not the same 

 except in principle, thereby distributing the outgo and 

 income of a given area over the thousands of unit 

 areas of which 

 it consists. 

 Thus we find 

 that during a 

 certain year 

 they cut an 

 average of fif- 

 ty-four cubic 

 feet per hec- 

 tare, yielding 

 in net revenue 

 about five dol- 

 lars. Consid- 

 ering the com- 

 bined land and 

 stumpage val- 

 ue this spells 

 a profit of one 

 per cent per 

 annum, which 

 is not stagger- 

 ing when com- 

 pared with our own industrial stocks. But there is 

 the great value which these forests lend to the coun- 

 try's tourist business, an asset beyond calculation in 

 terms of money, for the hills are dotted with Kur- 

 hauser where visitors before the war spent their wealth 

 for the privi- 

 lege of roam- 

 ing among the 

 fir trees. More- 

 over, out of 

 the gross rev- 

 enue the for- 

 esters spend a 

 dollar per 

 hectare upon 

 the highways, 

 which takes a 

 heavy burden 

 from the state. 

 All in all it is 

 a fine system, 

 this co-opera- 

 tion of lum- 

 b e r i n g and 

 health resort 

 interests prob- 

 ably impossi- 

 ble where a weaker form of government would hesi- 

 tate to dictate, but they are partly owned and wholly 

 controlled by the powers of State. 



And now we are told that the great catastrophe 



THE BAUENER SCHWARTZWALD 



? ^' 



"Vt, 



Photograph by C. IV. Armstrong 



SECOND GROWTH IN THE BLACK FOREST 



The development of a spruce plantation on rock soil. Here the steep hillsides arc su well covered that 

 erosion is reduced to the minimum by a thriving forest. 



has strained Germany's timber resources beyond the 

 breaking point, in fact she could not sujjply her own 

 needs in peace time, depending largely upon im- 

 ports. And the Black Forest has perha])s gone down 



before the ax 

 and saw! Just 

 what this real- 

 ly means we 

 do not know, 

 l)robably the 

 chief attrac- 

 tion for future 

 visitors has 

 been removed, 

 and the Ger- 

 mans are no 

 better off than 

 we in man- 

 m a d e wood- 

 lands and far 

 worse so far 

 a s primeval 

 growth is con- 

 cerned, having 

 little if any. 

 Of course they 

 will grow another Schwartzwald, but the task will re- 

 quire half a century or more. Maybe the flood of day- 

 light will kill those mythical creatures of story, and 

 the logging villages will rot down because their for- 

 mer occupants are dead in foreign fields or out of 



work in their 

 old home 

 places. But for 

 all this there 

 are many les- 

 sons contain- 

 ed in the story 

 of this area, 

 some of them 

 applicable to 

 ourown Amcr- 

 i c a n condi- 

 tions, and they 

 are responsi- 

 ble for this 

 brief and inad- 

 equate sketch. 

 We also have 

 watering 

 places, and 

 cities of sum- 

 m e r tourists, 

 not to mention those year-around hives of industry 

 and commerce. Woodlands are nature's finest gift 

 for man's recreation and the noblest setting for hi.e 

 every day toil. 



