A BEGINNER IN FORESTRY 



By ANNE WARNER 



Paper Five 



I BEGIN to wonder if, in the caring The desire to know the answer to 

 for trees so that they may produce the riddle is that the riddle here 

 railroad ties, houses, and other truly is so big. The great plain of 

 artificial necessaries, we haven't lost northern Germany lies straight out- 

 sight of the whole basic principle of spread beyond me as I write. Wide 

 forestry. The real need of trees is so and flat, dotted with villages, fertile 

 that weary mortals may get out of with rich upper soil. The ocean once 

 houses and off of railroad ties, and rolled to the foot of this hillside, and 

 back to one of the greatest pleasures ages earlier all the rocks of which the 

 of life, the pleasure of just being hill and all those around are made was 

 alive, the pleasure of becoming a formed in its depths. Now this is 

 child in heart, the pleasure of being the riddle : all the rocks are strata 

 happy without knowing why. plainly defined, and without exception 

 The place where I am is small, not they are all tipped almost perpendicu- 

 much frequented, totally ignored by larly on end. The slant is invariable, 

 Mr. Baedeker, and the most of the in- and the ends of the stratum have a 

 habitants of the village are the simplest sharp little twist just beneath the soil, 

 peasant-folk, men and women who The soil on these rocks is only one or 

 work in the fields and go home at night two feet deep and is first sand and then 

 in long, uneven ranks, seven or eight the rich black of vegetation. Such a 

 together, each carrying his or her rake, big riddle to me. 



hoe, or shovel. There is a domain, or The foresters interest me greatly, 

 large landed estate, and the woods be- Men who care for the growth of 150 

 longing to the estate come as strictly years and who cherish the life in that 

 under the forester's rule as if they were which will come to its end in 2050 or 

 government property. The whole thereabouts, must have some traits 

 country-side is covered with beautiful which any American may well find in- 

 forests, mainly "self-planted." The terest in studying. The forester here 

 forester has explained to me that when tells me that he loves his vocation, and 

 there is a good growth of young trees I can understand that no man would 

 after the cut they let them alone, only choose it who did not love it ; because, 

 concerning themselves with the thin of all professions, it would be the least 

 places, or the places where the soil is possible to give a living to an indiffer- 

 evidently not fitted for the young trees ent follower. I went with him the other 

 springing there. The soil in this vicin- day to see his knife mark out the super- 

 ity is chalky, and the lay of the land fluous saplings, and I soon learned the 

 makes me want to study geology- two rules that saved or condemned : 

 when I don't want to study mushrooms, health at the root, and whether or not 

 botany, astronomy, or any other one of the young top formed part of the cover 

 the new-old primitive sciences which overhead. The cover overhead must 

 press powerfully to the fore when one be continuous or else grass grows be- 

 comes oneself under the forest's neath, and grass is not allowed in Ger- 

 scepter. man forests. I mean, of course, as a 

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