PREFAC1. xi 



able localities. And that, face to face with the late fearful devastations 

 in the spruce forests of southern Bavaria, these principles should be 

 even more strongly insisted on, can easily be understood." 



At page 387 he also adds advice of good practical 

 value, as follows : 



" Considering the circumstances of the timber market in general nowa- 

 days and of local demands, and also having regard to their incontestably 

 thriving growth, no argument is required to show that the Conifers, and 

 in particular spruce, must nearly everywhere claim the lion's share in 

 the composition of the mixed forests of the future." 



Mixed woods have the great advantages of denser 

 growth, larger and finer production of timber both as 

 regards quantity and technical quality, lessened 

 danger from storms, snow, ice, insects, fire, and fungoid 

 diseases, against all of which inestimable and solid 

 advantages the only drawback that can be named is, 

 that the tending of such woods is much more difficult, 

 and requires considerably greater knowledge of sylvi- 

 culture, than is requisite for the treatment of pure 

 forests. 



In France about 70 per cent, of the wooded area 

 is under mixed forests, and although not such scientific 

 foresters as the Germans, the French are good practical 

 sylviculturists, who would long ere now have found 

 out if any great advantages lay in pure forests. 



Any one who has travelled through the better- 

 wooded tracts of Britain after having undergone a 

 lengthened practical and scientific course of study of 

 forestry in Germany, cannot fail to be impressed with 

 two main facts -.firstly, that in general the plantations 

 are not quite so dense as they should be in order to 

 attain the utmost outturn and the best development 

 producible by the soil ; and secondly, that the im- 

 portance of undcrplanting for the protection and im- 



