Tlir: MATTiCRIIOKX 

 A view from the roadside, near RitTelalp, above Zermatt; altitude, 7,415 feet. 



How Switzerland Cultivates Her Forests 



By Marie Widmer 



SWITZERLAND, in the year 100 A. D., is de- 

 scribed as being covered with swamps and great 

 impenetrable forests and the latter offered tre- 

 mendous obstacles to colonization. The necessary 

 land for pastures and agriculture had thus to be taken 

 away from the forests and the history of the coloniza- 

 tion is consequently closely connected with that of the 

 forests. 



Not much attention was paid to the cultivation or 

 preservation of the forests in the early days, when the 

 Alemanni, Burgundians and Franks swept through the 

 land, but in the time of the latter, when Charlemagne 

 was king, a general and remarkable improvement of con- 

 ditions took place. History relates that Charlemagne's 

 grandson presented in the year 853 the now famous 

 Sihl Forest of Ziirich to the Convent of Fraumiinster 



in that city, which indicates that the Sihl Forest is 

 actually one of the oldest cultivated forests in Switzer- 

 land. 



Gradually, as settlers began to scatter all over the 

 country, their attention was drawn to the forestry prob- 

 lem and it is shown that in the thirteenth century there 

 were already a number of villages which had prohibited 

 the cutting down of certain forests, as the same pro- 

 vided protection against the ever-threatening peril from 

 the avalanches. Thus we find Altdorf and Andermatt 

 on the Gothard route each with their '"Bannwald." For 

 some time the great vaudoise forest of Risoux in the 

 Joux Valley was also considered as a "protecting forest," 

 as its presence could facilitate the defense of the fron- 

 tier toward France in a case of emergency. 



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