E rORESTER. 



VOL. VI. 



MARCH, 1900. 



No. 3, 



Forest Planting in Norway. 



Extract from a lecture by Professor Deinboll, of Bergen, Norway. 



BY COURTESY OF THE U. S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE. 



During these later years the question 

 of our forests has been largely agitated, 

 and seems to have awakened great interest 

 in this country. We can now read long 

 articles in the daily papers in aid of the 

 forests, but if this cause, which is of price- 

 less value to us, is to succeed, we must all 

 join hands and work together. 



For the last fifty years leading and skil- 

 ful men have been appealing to the people 

 to protect the valuable property they have 

 in the forests, unless they want the country 

 to go to ruin. We have all been brought 

 up in the belief that Norway was rich in 

 forests, and so it was, one-fifth of the 

 country being covered with trees, but they 

 have been very badly destroyed in several 

 places, many hundred million trees being 

 cut down every year. But the country 

 must take more care of this costly treasure. 



Such a large number of trees are con- 

 sumed that, should it continue, we will 

 soon reach the end. The forests have 

 been used badly and for a long time have 

 been ravaged in a most careless way. A 

 large part of the country now lies almost 

 bare, where once it was clothed in green 

 from mountain to fiord. Once forests 

 covered the entire landscape, but so much 

 has been cut away, that one-half of the 

 country has not enough timber for build- 

 ing purposes, and one-fourth not even 

 enough for burning. The increasing de- 

 mand for timber makes the forests more 



scattered every year, and more trees have 

 been taken than the forests can replace. 

 Twenty years ago a committee of inquirv 

 found that we used two million gross more 

 of trees every year than the forests could 

 grow. To-day the circumstances are 

 worse. Both the export and the inland 

 consumption hasjncreased, large quantities 

 being used in our blossoming industry, 

 wood-pulp factories being established all 

 over and the product sold amounts to 

 twenty million Kroner ($5,360,000) a 

 year. 



j 



According to the last account received 

 400,000 gross of great logs \vere sent down 

 the river Drammen in 1897, and 100,000 

 more the year before in Glommen. By 

 these numbers we see that every tree, 

 whether in seed or not, was cut down. 

 If the forests are robbed in this way, it 

 will not be long before all the hills will 

 be barren, and we will realize that while 

 every one thought of cutting down the 

 trees, no one thought of replanting them. 

 If this system continues, it will not be 

 long before Norway will be stripped of 

 her forests, which will be an irreparable 

 loss both to country and people. 



Once our forests were of great value. 

 Now thousands of busy hands are em- 

 ployed, and the wood sold amounts to 60 

 million Kroner ($16,080,000), more than 

 one-third of our total export, every year, 

 besides the inland consumption, which is 



