CHAPTER XIV. 

 REALISATION. 



WE have now arrived at that period when the forester 

 gathers in his harvest. He, like the farmer, has sown, 

 planted, tended, and trained his crop, and when 

 maturity is reached gathers it in to his garners. 

 Patience, however, is a virtue which the forester must 

 possess in greater abundance than the farmer, for 

 many years must elapse between the sowing of the 

 seed in the nursery and the reaping of the matured 

 tree. Generations pass away, foresters succeed 

 foresters, those who planted are forgotten, and when 

 the axe is laid to the foot of the tree it, too, is for- 

 gotten, and the work is complete. 



It must not be supposed far one moment that this 

 series of chapters (treating of the creation and after 

 management of a plantation) extends only over the 

 brief period comprised in the life of an average land- 

 owner ; on the contrary, it deals with a period more 

 or less extended in accordance with the nature of the 

 timber and the nature of the soil in which it is grown. 

 It may be thirty, or it may be one hundred years or 

 more. 



But, nevertheless, if each successive landov/ner 

 follows honestly the rules of good forestry, each one 



